Image Inpainting Using a TV-Stokes Equation

Based on some geometrical considerations, we propose a two-step method to do digital image inpainting. In the first step, we try to propagate the isophote directions into the inpainting domain. An energy minimization model combined with the zero divergence condition is used to get a nonlinear Stokes equation. Once the isophote directions are constructed, an image is restored to fit the constructed directions. Both steps reduce to the solving of some nonlinear partial differential equations. Details about the discretization and implementation are explained. The algorithms have been intensively tested on synthetic and real images. The advantages of the proposed methods are demonstrated by these experiments.