Motion Deblurring from a Single Image using Circular Sensor Motion

Image blur caused by object motion attenuates high frequency content of images, making post-capture deblurring an ill-posed problem. The recoverable frequency band quickly becomes narrower for faster object motion as high frequencies are severely attenuated and virtually lost. This paper proposes to translate a camera sensor circularly about the optical axis during exposure, so that high frequencies can be preserved for a wide range of in-plane linear object motion in any direction around some predetermined speed. That is, although no object may be photographed sharply at capture time, differently moving objects captured in a single image can be deconvolved with similar quality. In addition, circular sensor motion is shown to facilitate blur estimation thanks to distinct frequency zero patterns of the resulting motion blur point-spread functions. An analysis of the frequency characteristics of circular sensor motion in relation to linear object motion is presented, along with deconvolution results for photographs captured with a prototype camera.