Region Filling and Object Removal by Exemplar-Based Image Inpainting

A new algorithm is proposed for removing large objects from digital images. The challenge is to fill in the hole that is left behind in a visually plausible way. In the past, this problem has been addressed by two classes of algorithms: 1) "texture synthesis" algorithms for generating large image regions from sample textures and 2) "inpainting" techniques for filling in small image gaps. The former has been demonstrated for "textures"--repeating two-dimensional patterns with some stochasticity; the latter focus on linear "structures" which can be thought of as one-dimensional patterns, such as lines and object contours. This paper presents a novel and efficient algorithm that combines the advantages of these…