Image Clean (ImaCle)

Type: Interactive/Batch Application

Cleans scratch marks on images.

Detailed Description

This application will clean scratch marks on images by allowing the user to place VrOne lines on top of the scratches. A blending technique is used that tries to “recreate” the original pixels that were under the scratches. Scratches may be cleaned using a set blending width for all scratches, or by using the line width to allow a different blending width for each scratch. A preview mode allows instant viewing of the cleaned images before they are written out to new files. The following steps define a typical usage of the Image Clean application.

In VrOne, open images to be cleaned.
Open or create a new VrOne file to hold the lines that will be placed on top of the scratches.
Start the Image Clean application.
Display the Enter Parameters dialog box (button 7) and adjust the settings as needed.
Optionally turn on Preview Mode (button 1).
Without exiting the Image Clean application, use the Insert Line application to place lines into the “clean” layer that was specified in the parameter dialog box. These lines should be placed directly on top of the scratches to be removed. These can be simple two point lines or more complex polygons.

TIP: If Preview Mode is on, you may want to turn off the “clean” lines layer before starting to place the clean lines. When a layer is off in VrOne, you can still insert lines into it, and they will be displayed until a replot command is issued. When placing clean lines this way, you can issue a replot after each line is saved. The replot will remove the line from the display and instantly show the affects of the scratch removal.

After all clean lines have been placed and you have verified that the scratched have been removed using Preview Mode, the cleaned images may all be saved using the Output Images (button 2) command.

Parameters

Clean Line Layer

Specifies the layer to search for clean lines. All workspaces will be searched.

Blending Width

Specifies the pixel blending width to use when removing scratches. This is the width of pixels that will be changed along each clean line. If the “Same as line width” option is selected, then the blending width will be determined by each lines display width. This setting may take some experimentation, but you should always specify the smallest blending width that still removes the scratch completely. Larger blending widths will produce undesirable results when viewed up close. A width that is too small will require a more exact placement of the clean lines; therefore, a width of 3 is probably the smallest practical width that should be used.

Output file name prefix

Specifies the prefix to add to all output file names. Output files will always be placed in the same directory as the input files, but will have this prefix added to the filename. If this is left blank, then a postfix must be specified.

Output file name postfix

Specifies the postfix to add to all output file names. Output files will always be placed in the same directory as the input files, but will have this postfix added to the filename. If this is left blank, then a prefix must be specified.

Button Assignments

Image Mosaic – Main

	Button	Description
1	Tog Preview	Turns preview mode off and on.
2	Output Imgs	Outputs all images to new files with scratches removed.
3
4
5		Display Edit Seams menu allowing seam line to be edited
6
7	Enter params	Enter parameters from dialog box
8
9
*
0
#	End	Ends application