Signal-to-noise ratio for temporal integrated drifting images: a model for perceived image sharpening

A formulation of signal-to-noise ratio is constructed that uses temporal integrated images from image sequences. Given a blurred image that drifts horizontally at various speeds and at various linear blurs, we prove that this formulation of the signal-to-noise ratio consistently increases with an increase in speed. This increase is shown to model the trends in the human vision system by which drifting blurred images are perceived with increased sharpness. The existing widely used objective quality techniques fail to model the perceptual increase in sharpness. This new formulation, along with other objective quality measures, is tested on several blurred drifting image sequences. The new formulation reflects the theoretically predicted increase in perceived sharpness.