Patent ID: 8041152

Claim:
An image resolution increasing method, comprising: inputting a low-resolution image having a first size as a size that indicates the numbers of pixels arranged vertically and horizontally; inputting a high-resolution image obtained by increasing in resolution the low-resolution image to a second size by an interpolation manner or a super-resolution manner, the second size being a desired size of a first image finally generated; calculating a first block size corresponding to the first size and a second block size corresponding to the second size in accordance with the first size and the second size; setting a first position of a block of the first block size in the low-resolution image, and a second position of a block of the second block size in the high-resolution image or the first image, the second position corresponding to the first position; setting a first block which is included in the low-resolution image and is located at the first position, and a second block which is included in the high-resolution image and is located at the second position; setting, as an increased resolution block of the first block, a third block expressed by a second vector obtained by projecting a first vector representing the second block to a linear manifold as a set of vectors that indicate fourth blocks of the second block size, the fourth blocks becoming the first block due to reduced resolution, in a Euclidean space having, as the number of dimensions, a product of the number of pixels arranged vertically in the second block size and the number of pixels arranged horizontally in the second block size to obtain a plurality of increased resolution blocks; and generating the first image using at least one of the increased resolution blocks set by changing the first position and the second position.