Automated Segmentation of Torn Frames using the Graph Cuts Technique

Film Tear is a form of degradation in archived film and is the physical ripping of the film material. Tear causes displacement of a region of the degraded frame and the loss of image data along the boundary of tear. In [1], a restoration algorithm was proposed to correct the displacement in the frame introduced by the tear by estimating the global motion of the 2 regions either side of the tear. However, the algorithm depended on a user-defined segmentation to divide the frame. This paper presents a new fully-automated segmentation algorithm which divides affected frames along the tear. The algorithm employs the graph cuts optimisation technique and uses temporal intensity differences, rather than spatial gradient, to describe the boundary properties of the segmentation. Segmentations produced with the proposed algorithm agree well with the perceived correct segmentation.