SIGNAL PROCESSING METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SAMPLED IMAGE SIGNALS

A signal processing method and apparatus for providing interpolated values between sampled values in a sampled image signal, is characterized by providing a plurality of different interpolation routines for producing interpolated signal values for appropriately completing a respective plurality of known features, detecting which of the geometrical image features is represented by a neighborhood of sample values and applying the interpolation routine appropriate for completing the detected feature, to produce the interpolated signal value. The signal processing method and apparatus has the advantage that reconstruction errors in the reproduced image are reduced. In one mode of the invention for processing images to be viewed by humans, reconstruction errors are forced to occur in areas of the image composed of natural textures where the errors are not readily visible to the human observer. The appearance of the reconstructed image is thereby improved.