Algorithm and architecture for blocking artifact correction unconstrained by region types

Blocking artifacts are discontinuities visible on the MPEG grid edges. They are caused by coarse, independent quantization of the block DCT coefficients. Artifacts can be corrected by filtering image contents perpendicularly to the discontinuities (vertical and horizontal) if they are in uniform image regions that contain only low spatial frequencies. In this paper we present a new approach to blocking artifact correction algorithm. It uses three one-dimension DCTs, and one inverse DCT operation to correct all horizontal and vertical artifacts in an image. We call it the DCT frequency deblocking (DFD). DFD filters out artifact frequencies unconstrained by image region types, and is subject to maintaining best image quality with a minimum loss of energy. We also present a hardware architecture suitable for real-time execution of the algorithm.