Inversion of band-limited discrete Fourier transforms of binary images: Uniqueness and algorithms

Abstract

Conventional inversion of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) requires all DFT coefficients to be known. When the DFT coefficients of a rasterized image (represented as a matrix) are known only within a pass band, the original matrix cannot be uniquely recovered. In many cases of practical importance, the matrix is binary and its elements can be reduced to either 0 or 1. This is the case, for example, for the commonly used QR codes. The {\it a priori} information that the matrix is binary can compensate for the missing high-frequency DFT coefficients and restore uniqueness of image recovery. This paper addresses, both theoretically and numerically, the problem of recovery of blurred images without any known structure whose high-frequency DFT coefficients have been irreversibly lost by utilizing the binarity constraint. We investigate theoretically the smallest band limit for which unique recovery of a generic binary matrix is still possible. Uniqueness results are proved for images of sizes $N_1 \times N_2$, $N_1 \times N_1$, and $N_1^\alpha\times N_1^\alpha$, where $N_1 \neq N_2$ are prime numbers and $\alpha>1$ an integer. Inversion algorithms are proposed for recovering the matrix from its band-limited (blurred) version. The algorithms combine integer linear programming methods with lattice basis reduction techniques and significantly outperform naive implementations. The algorithm efficiently and reliably reconstructs severely blurred $29 \times 29$ binary matrices with only $11\times 11 = 121$ DFT coefficients.