Patent ID: 8538201

Claim:
A method of resolution enhancement for an image, the method comprising: receiving a first image at a first resolution; generating a second image at the first resolution as a blurred image of the first image; generating a third image by upscaling the first image to a second resolution; synthesizing a resolution enhanced image at the second resolution without referencing an image other than the first, second, and third images by iterating for a plurality of pixel sets of the resolution enhanced image the steps of: selecting a first pixel set of the resolution enhanced image; selecting a comparison pixel set of the third image having a first predetermined spatial relationship to the first pixel set, the comparison pixel set having a resolution of the second resolution; selecting a synthesized pixel set of the resolution enhanced image having a second spatial relationship to the first pixel set, the synthesized pixel set having a resolution of the second resolution; for a plurality of locations in an image area performing the steps of: selecting a first location; determining a first match metric between the comparison pixel set and a first sample pixel set for the second image having a third spatial relationship to the first location, the first sample pixel set having a resolution of the first resolution; determining a second match metric between the synthesized pixel set and a second sample pixel set for at least one of the first image and the third image having a fourth spatial relationship to the first location, the second sample pixel set having a resolution of the first resolution; generating a combined match metric for the first location by combining the first match metric and the second match metric; and generating at least one pixel value for the first pixel set in response to the combined match metrics and pixel values of a source image area of at least one of the first image and the third image.