New edge directed interpolation

This paper presents a novel edge orientation adaptive interpolation scheme for resolution enhancement of still images. In order to achieve ideal orientation adaptation, we propose to estimate the local covariance characteristics at low resolution but cleverly use them to direct the interpolation at high resolution based on the resolution invariant property of edge orientation. The orientation adaptive property guarantees the interpolation always go along the edge orientation but not across it. Our new interpolation scheme can generate images with dramatically higher visual quality than linear interpolation techniques while keeping the computational complexity still modest.