Patent ID: 8063995

Claim:
A method of filtering pixels in a plurality of video frames, the method comprising: selecting a first pixel from one of the video frames, the first pixel having location coordinates at a horizontal position x, a vertical position y, and a time t; determining weights for a set of pixel intensities in the video frames, wherein each weight is based on at least one pixel in a neighborhood of the first pixel and at least one pixel in a neighborhood of the pixel to be weighted, the weight applied to a pixel is determined by a functional relationship to at least one of the following metrics: the spatial distance between the location coordinates x, y, and the spatial location coordinates of the pixel being averaged; the spatial distance between the location coordinates x, y and the motion compensated values of the spatial location coordinates of the pixel being averaged; the difference between the time t and a value of time associated with the pixel being averaged; the average of the absolute value of difference between the average intensity in a two-dimensional spatial neighborhood of the pixel being averaged and the average intensity in a spatial neighborhood of the pixel at the x and y; the absolute value of the average difference between the intensity of the pixel at x, y, t and the intensity of the pixel being averaged; the average, taken over a two-dimensional neighborhood of x and y, of the absolute value of the difference between the intensity of a pixel displaced from x and y and the intensity of a pixel identically displaced from the pixel being averaged; determining a weighted average using the weights and the pixel intensities; and identifying the weighted average as the filtered output at pixel location x, y, and t.