Image retargeting method by similarity transformation, cropping and letterboxing operators

Image retargeting methods change the size of images to an arbitrary resolution while protecting visually important regions from distortion. Conventional retargeting methods fail to avoid distortion in the case where visually important regions are distributed all over the image. To solve this problem, we propose a novel image retargeting method that combines image warping with cropping and letterboxing operators. Letterboxing has the advantage of producing results without distortion or content loss although being unable to use the entire display area. Experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of our method.