A New Fourth-order Equation Model for Image Inpainting

PDE-based (partial differential equations) image inpainting is an important research topic in the area of image restoration. Its objective is restore the lost information according to around image information in a way that looks natural for the eye. In this paper, guided by the an isotropic diffusion principle and the connectivity principle of human visual perception, we put forward a novel nonlinear PDE inpainting model. The procedure allows for the transporting and diffusing of image information simultaneously. That is, the approach here displayed permits the transportation of available information from the outside towards inside of the inpainting domain and the diffusion of the inside information in the inpainting domain at the same time. Both theoretical analysis and experiments have verified the validity of the method proposed in the paper.