Influence of Signal-to-Noise Ratio and Point Spread Function on Limits of Super-Resolution

conference paper
This paper presents a method to predict the limit of possible resolution enhancement given a sequence of low resolution images. Three important parameters influence the outcome of this limit: the total Point Spread Function (PSF), the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and the number of input images. Although a large number of input images captured by a system with a narrow PSF and a high SNR are desirable, these conditions are often not achievable simultaneously. To improve the SNR, cameras are designed with near optimal quantum efficiency and maximum fill-factor. However, the latter widens the system PSF, which puts more weight on the deblurring part of a super-resolution (SR) reconstruction algorithm. This paper analyzes the contribution of each input parameters to the SR reconstruction and predicts the best attainable SR factor for given a camera setting. The predicted SR factor agrees well with an edge sharpness measure computed from the reconstructed SR images. A sufficient number of randomly positioned input images to achieve this limit for a given scene can also be derived assuming Gaussian noise and registration errors.
TNO Identifier
222790
ISSN
0277786X
Publisher
SPIE
Source title
Proceedings of SPIE-IS and T Electronic Imaging - Image Processing: Algorithms and Systems IV, 17 January 2005 through 18 January 2005, San Jose, CA, USA
Editor(s)
Dougherty, E.R.
Astola, J.T.
Egiazarian, K.O.
Place of publication
Bellingham, WA
Pages
169-180