Efficient and Effective Total Variation Image Super-Resolution: A Preconditioned Operator Splitting Approach

Super-resolution is a fusion process for reconstructing a high-resolution image from a set of low-resolution images. This paper proposes a novel approach to image super-resolution based on total variation (TV) regularization. We applied the Douglas-Rachford splitting technique to the constrained TV-based variational SR model which is separated into three subproblems that are easy to solve. Then, we derive an efficient and effective iterative scheme, which includes a fast iterative shrinkage/thresholding algorithm for denoising problem, a very simple noniterative algorithm for fusion part, and linear equation systems for deblurring process. Moreover, to speed up convergence, we provide an accelerated scheme based on precondition design of initial guess and forward-backward splitting technique which yields linear systems of equations with a nice structure. The proposed algorithm shares a remarkable simplicity together with a proven global rate of convergence which is significantly better than currently known lagged diffusivity fixed point iteration algorithm and fast decoupling algorithm by exploiting the alternating minimizing approach. Experimental results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.