Automatic Blemish Detection for Image Restoration of Virtual Heritage Environments1

This paper proposes a novel approach for the completion of natural scenery images, which automatically detects the blemish region in the image for restoration. This approach consists of two filtering steps and uses shape information to detect the blemish region. Then, the detected regions are marked with a specified color, so that image completion is conveniently implemented in the area we detected. We demonstrate this approach with an image database containing a variety of scenery images, especially the images or frescoes of Dunhuang, which are the relics of Chinese culture and are urgently needed to be protected and restored. The experiment results show that our approach is effective when integrated with the subsequent image completion procedure. Keyword: image completion, blemish detection, detection filtering, virtual environment, texture synthesis