APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR NON-UNIFORM IMAGE SCALING

A source image may be manipulated by a computer to include special graphics effects. The source image may be used for still pictures or motion video applications and may include a single image or a sequence of images. The special graphics effects applied to the source image to create a desired destination image include various non-uniform scaling or arbitrary distortion functions. The effect has a corresponding affine transformation that approximates the non-uniform scaling function. This affine transformation is used to define an ellipse in the source image. A linear transformation from a unit circle in the source image to the ellipse in the source image is calculated. The linear transformation is used to modify a reconstruction filter in the source image. A pixel value in the destination image is determined by identifying pixels included in a support of the modified reconstruction filter in the source image in order to reduce artifacts in non-uniform scaling applications.