Using optical flow to reduce noise in image sequences

Abstract

In this paper we propose a method for noise reduction in image sequences, based on the optical flow, consisting in tracking each pixel's position in the previous and following images. In some cases the optical flow imperfections can cause artifacts. To prevent them we also propose an improvement to the method based on the estimation of the imperfections of the optical flow. Using that estimation we adaptatively choose either a temporal or a spatial based noise reduction algorithm to be applied in different image zones. Our results show an important noise reduction, even with complex image sequences.