Multi-Frame Super-Resolution Reconstruction Based on Gradient Vector Flow Hybrid Field

In this paper, we propose a novel multi-frame super-resolution (SR) method, which is developed by considering image enhancement and denoising into the SR processing. For image enhancement, a gradient vector flow hybrid field (GVFHF) algorithm, which is robust to noise is first designed to capture the image edges more accurately. Then, through replacing the gradient of anisotropic diffusion shock filter (ADSF) by GVFHF, a GVFHF-based ADSF (GVFHF-ADSF) model is proposed, which can effectively achieve image denoising and enhancement. In addition, a difference curvature-based spatial weight factor is defined in the GVFHF-ADSF model to obtain an adaptive weight between denoising and enhancement in the flat and edge regions. Finally, a GVFHF-ADSF-based multi-frame SR method is presented by employing the GVFHF-ADSF model as a regularization term and the steepest descent algorithm is adopted to solve the inverse SR problem. Experimental results and comparisons with existing methods demonstrate that the proposed GVFHF-ADSF-based SR algorithm can effectively suppress both Gaussian and salt-and-pepper noise, meanwhile enhance edges of the reconstructed image.