Proposed project:
 
 Applied Image Restoration
 
 Clint Martin, cmartin_121@yahoo.com
 
   The proposed project is a comparison of image
 restoration techniques applied to a specific problem. 
 The problem to be addressed is the removal of an
 artifact in pictures taken with my digital camera.  My
 camera apparently has a piece of dust trapped in the
 optics.  When pictures are taken in bright settings
 where the camera's aperture closes to a pinhole, the
 obstruction is plainly visible on the resulting
 pictures (see attached sample pictures, the
 obstruction is above and to the left of the center of
 the pictures).  
 
   My proposed project is to research, develop, and
 compare methods of removing such an artifact from
 pictures.  My project will start with removal of the
 artifact from still pictures, and if time permits,
 will investigate other methods that can be used with
 MPEG movies generated by the camera.
 
   Methods of removing the artifact from still pictures
 will include averaging the background in the
 neighborhood of the artifact and replacing the
 artifact with the average background value, image
 smoothing around the artifact, interpolation of
 artifact pixels from the surrounding pixels, and other
 methods discovered from research or imagination.
 
   If time permits, I will also research methods of
 removing the artifact from MPEG movies generated by
 the camera.  Such methods would make use of the
 knowledge that the artifact is stationary in position
 and slowly time-varying in intensity to try to remove
 the artifact and appropriately insert the background
 from the surrounding frames to replace the artifact.