Occlusion-Aware Video Deblurring with a New Layered Blur Model

We present a deblurring method for scenes with occluding objects using a carefully designed layered blur model. Layered blur model is frequently used in the motion deblurring problem to handle locally varying blurs, which is caused by object motions or depth variations in a scene. However, conventional models have a limitation in representing the layer interactions occurring at occlusion boundaries. In this paper, we address this limitation in both theoretical and experimental ways, and propose a new layered blur model reflecting actual blur generation process. Based on this model, we develop an occlusion-aware deblurring method that can estimate not only the clear foreground and background, but also the object motion more accurately. We also provide a novel analysis on the blur kernel at object boundaries, which shows the distinctive characteristics of the blur kernel that cannot be captured by conventional blur models. Experimental results on synthetic and real blurred videos demonstrate that the proposed method yields superior results, especially at object boundaries. Part of this work was done while the authors were at Seoul National University. Currently at Samsung Electronics.