LARGE KERNEL FILTERING USING A FIXED-SIZE BLOCK PROCESSOR

A method and system for filtering a digital image with a filter larger than the hardware capabilities of the imaging system is workable by subdividing the large filter into a number of small filters which can each be individually processed by the system. The method includes the steps of: segmenting the digital image into data blocks of a predetermined size; overlapping adjacent data blocks by a predetermined number of pixels; providing a preselected filter kernel; generating small filters by processing a preselected group of components of the filter kernel; applying each of the small filters to each overlapped data block to produce component data blocks; and merging and saving the component data blocks into filtered data blocks according to a predetermined specific criteria, whereby the filtered data blocks represent the filtered digital image.