Patent ID: 8073277

Claim:
A method comprising the steps of: receiving an image having at least one marked region, each marked region of the image having a plurality of pixels; generating a source window, the source window enclosing at least one of the marked regions of the image; selecting a pixel from within one of the at least one marked regions enclosed by the source window; generating a fill window around the selected pixel; generating at least one search window around each pixel outside the at least one marked region of the image and inside the source window, each at least one search window having approximately the same size as the fill window; comparing the intensity distribution of at least a portion of the fill window with the intensity distribution of the corresponding portion of each at least one search window; selecting at least one search window from among the generated at least one search window based on the comparison of the intensity distribution of the fill window with the intensity distribution of each at least one search window; filling at least a portion of the pixels in the fill window with corresponding pixels in the selected at least one search window; wherein the selected pixel is selected based on a fill order; and wherein the fill order is determined by a time of arrival computation using the Eikonal equation initialized with the contour of the edges of the originally received at least one marked region and a prescribed speed function based on image intensity gradient.