Block-based image inpainting in the wavelet domain

This paper introduces a new model for block-based image inpainting in the wavelet domain. The proposed technique separates the inpainting process into two different and important steps, both using the energy of wavelet coefficients. First, the model explores wavelet detail coefficients to estimate the image gradient vector, weighting each vector with the energy of wavelet coefficients. Such information is then used to determine which block belonging to the inpainting region should be filled first. After that, an adapted method for texture synthesis in the wavelet domain is applied in order to successfully fill this block. These two steps are applied successively, until the inpainting region is completely filled. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm can fill large inpainting regions with good visual quality, presenting results comparable to or better than other competitive approaches for image inpainting.