Methods of processing digital image and/or video data including luminance filtering based on chrominance data and related systems and computer program products

Abstract

Digital image and / or video data is processed wherein a frame of the data comprises a plurality of rows and columns of pixels with data for each pixel including a luminance value and a chrominance value. Chrominance values and luminance values may be received for a current pixel and at least one adjacent pixel, and the chrominance values of the current pixel and the at least one adjacent pixel may be compared. The luminance value of the current pixel may be filtered wherein a strength of filtering the luminance value is based on the comparison of the chrominance values of the current and at least one adjacent pixels.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to the field of image and / or video, and more particular to processing of digital image and / or video data and related systems and computer program products. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] A pixel adaptive noise reduction filter for digital video is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,959,693 to Siu-Wai Wu et al. As discussed in the abstract of Wu et al., a current pixel of a video image is adaptively filtered to provide stronger filtering when there is a high likelihood that noise is present. Weaker filtering is provided when the presence of a color and / or brightness edge is likely in the video image. Each pixel has luminance and chrominance amplitude values. In a filtering method, a current pixel is intermediate to first and second pixels in the video frame. Difference signals are determined based on the amplitude difference between the current pixel and first and second adjacent pixels. A plurality of available filters provid...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0004] Filtering the luminance value of the current pixel may include averaging the luminance value of the current pixel with a luminance value of at least one adjacent pixel, and a strength of the filtering may be determined by weightings applied to the luminance values when averaging the luminance values. Comparing the chrominance values of the current and adjacent pixels may include calculating a difference between the chrominance values of the current and adjacent pixels. Moreover, the strength of filtering may be reduced when the difference between the chrominance values of the current and adjacent pixels is above a predetermined threshold, and the strength of filtering may be increased when the difference between the chrominance values of the current and adjacent pixels is below the predetermined threshold.

Problems solved by technology

In addition, decreasing the strength of filtering may comprise passing the luminance data for the pixel without filtering.

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