Is there a way to detect if an image is blurry?

Question

I was wondering if there is a way to determine if an image is blurry or not by analyzing the image data.

Answer 1

During some work with an auto-focus lens, I came across this very useful set of algorithms for detecting image focus. It's implemented in MATLAB, but most of the functions are quite easy to port to OpenCV with filter2D.

It's basically a survey implementation of many focus measurement algorithms. If you want to read the original papers, references to the authors of the algorithms are provided in the code. The 2012 paper by Pertuz, et al. Analysis of focus measure operators for shape from focus (SFF) gives a great review of all of these measure as well as their performance (both in terms of speed and accuracy as applied to SFF).

EDIT: Added MATLAB code just in case the link dies.

function FM = fmeasure(Image, Measure, ROI)
%This function measures the relative degree of focus of 
%an image. It may be invoked as:
%
%   FM = fmeasure(Image, Method, ROI)
%
%Where 
%   Image,  is a grayscale image and FM is the computed
%           focus value.
%   Method, is the focus measure algorithm as a string.
%           see 'operators.txt' for a list of focus 
%           measure methods. 
%   ROI,    Image ROI as a rectangle [xo yo width heigth].
%           if an empty argument is passed, the whole
%           image is processed.
%
%  Said Pertuz
%  Abr/2010


if ~isempty(ROI)
    Image = imcrop(Image, ROI);
end

WSize = 15; % Size of local window (only some operators)

switch upper(Measure)
    case 'ACMO' % Absolute Central Moment (Shirvaikar2004)
        if ~isinteger(Image), Image = im2uint8(Image);
        end
        FM = AcMomentum(Image);

    case 'BREN' % Brenner's (Santos97)
        [M N] = size(Image);
        DH = Image;
        DV = Image;
        DH(1:M-2,:) = diff(Image,2,1);
        DV(:,1:N-2) = diff(Image,2,2);
        FM = max(DH, DV);        
        FM = FM.^2;
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'CONT' % Image contrast (Nanda2001)
        ImContrast = inline('sum(abs(x(:)-x(5)))');
        FM = nlfilter(Image, [3 3], ImContrast);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'CURV' % Image Curvature (Helmli2001)
        if ~isinteger(Image), Image = im2uint8(Image);
        end
        M1 = [-1 0 1;-1 0 1;-1 0 1];
        M2 = [1 0 1;1 0 1;1 0 1];
        P0 = imfilter(Image, M1, 'replicate', 'conv')/6;
        P1 = imfilter(Image, M1', 'replicate', 'conv')/6;
        P2 = 3*imfilter(Image, M2, 'replicate', 'conv')/10 ...
            -imfilter(Image, M2', 'replicate', 'conv')/5;
        P3 = -imfilter(Image, M2, 'replicate', 'conv')/5 ...
            +3*imfilter(Image, M2, 'replicate', 'conv')/10;
        FM = abs(P0) + abs(P1) + abs(P2) + abs(P3);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'DCTE' % DCT energy ratio (Shen2006)
        FM = nlfilter(Image, [8 8], @DctRatio);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'DCTR' % DCT reduced energy ratio (Lee2009)
        FM = nlfilter(Image, [8 8], @ReRatio);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'GDER' % Gaussian derivative (Geusebroek2000)        
        N = floor(WSize/2);
        sig = N/2.5;
        [x,y] = meshgrid(-N:N, -N:N);
        G = exp(-(x.^2+y.^2)/(2*sig^2))/(2*pi*sig);
        Gx = -x.*G/(sig^2);Gx = Gx/sum(Gx(:));
        Gy = -y.*G/(sig^2);Gy = Gy/sum(Gy(:));
        Rx = imfilter(double(Image), Gx, 'conv', 'replicate');
        Ry = imfilter(double(Image), Gy, 'conv', 'replicate');
        FM = Rx.^2+Ry.^2;
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'GLVA' % Graylevel variance (Krotkov86)
        FM = std2(Image);

    case 'GLLV' %Graylevel local variance (Pech2000)        
        LVar = stdfilt(Image, ones(WSize,WSize)).^2;
        FM = std2(LVar)^2;

    case 'GLVN' % Normalized GLV (Santos97)
        FM = std2(Image)^2/mean2(Image);

    case 'GRAE' % Energy of gradient (Subbarao92a)
        Ix = Image;
        Iy = Image;
        Iy(1:end-1,:) = diff(Image, 1, 1);
        Ix(:,1:end-1) = diff(Image, 1, 2);
        FM = Ix.^2 + Iy.^2;
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'GRAT' % Thresholded gradient (Snatos97)
        Th = 0; %Threshold
        Ix = Image;
        Iy = Image;
        Iy(1:end-1,:) = diff(Image, 1, 1);
        Ix(:,1:end-1) = diff(Image, 1, 2);
        FM = max(abs(Ix), abs(Iy));
        FM(FMImage);
        FM = 1./R1;
        FM(index) = R1(index);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'HISE' % Histogram entropy (Krotkov86)
        FM = entropy(Image);

    case 'HISR' % Histogram range (Firestone91)
        FM = max(Image(:))-min(Image(:));


    case 'LAPE' % Energy of laplacian (Subbarao92a)
        LAP = fspecial('laplacian');
        FM = imfilter(Image, LAP, 'replicate', 'conv');
        FM = mean2(FM.^2);

    case 'LAPM' % Modified Laplacian (Nayar89)
        M = [-1 2 -1];        
        Lx = imfilter(Image, M, 'replicate', 'conv');
        Ly = imfilter(Image, M', 'replicate', 'conv');
        FM = abs(Lx) + abs(Ly);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'LAPV' % Variance of laplacian (Pech2000)
        LAP = fspecial('laplacian');
        ILAP = imfilter(Image, LAP, 'replicate', 'conv');
        FM = std2(ILAP)^2;

    case 'LAPD' % Diagonal laplacian (Thelen2009)
        M1 = [-1 2 -1];
        M2 = [0 0 -1;0 2 0;-1 0 0]/sqrt(2);
        M3 = [-1 0 0;0 2 0;0 0 -1]/sqrt(2);
        F1 = imfilter(Image, M1, 'replicate', 'conv');
        F2 = imfilter(Image, M2, 'replicate', 'conv');
        F3 = imfilter(Image, M3, 'replicate', 'conv');
        F4 = imfilter(Image, M1', 'replicate', 'conv');
        FM = abs(F1) + abs(F2) + abs(F3) + abs(F4);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'SFIL' %Steerable filters (Minhas2009)
        % Angles = [0 45 90 135 180 225 270 315];
        N = floor(WSize/2);
        sig = N/2.5;
        [x,y] = meshgrid(-N:N, -N:N);
        G = exp(-(x.^2+y.^2)/(2*sig^2))/(2*pi*sig);
        Gx = -x.*G/(sig^2);Gx = Gx/sum(Gx(:));
        Gy = -y.*G/(sig^2);Gy = Gy/sum(Gy(:));
        R(:,:,1) = imfilter(double(Image), Gx, 'conv', 'replicate');
        R(:,:,2) = imfilter(double(Image), Gy, 'conv', 'replicate');
        R(:,:,3) = cosd(45)*R(:,:,1)+sind(45)*R(:,:,2);
        R(:,:,4) = cosd(135)*R(:,:,1)+sind(135)*R(:,:,2);
        R(:,:,5) = cosd(180)*R(:,:,1)+sind(180)*R(:,:,2);
        R(:,:,6) = cosd(225)*R(:,:,1)+sind(225)*R(:,:,2);
        R(:,:,7) = cosd(270)*R(:,:,1)+sind(270)*R(:,:,2);
        R(:,:,7) = cosd(315)*R(:,:,1)+sind(315)*R(:,:,2);
        FM = max(R,[],3);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'SFRQ' % Spatial frequency (Eskicioglu95)
        Ix = Image;
        Iy = Image;
        Ix(:,1:end-1) = diff(Image, 1, 2);
        Iy(1:end-1,:) = diff(Image, 1, 1);
        FM = mean2(sqrt(double(Iy.^2+Ix.^2)));

    case 'TENG'% Tenengrad (Krotkov86)
        Sx = fspecial('sobel');
        Gx = imfilter(double(Image), Sx, 'replicate', 'conv');
        Gy = imfilter(double(Image), Sx', 'replicate', 'conv');
        FM = Gx.^2 + Gy.^2;
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'TENV' % Tenengrad variance (Pech2000)
        Sx = fspecial('sobel');
        Gx = imfilter(double(Image), Sx, 'replicate', 'conv');
        Gy = imfilter(double(Image), Sx', 'replicate', 'conv');
        G = Gx.^2 + Gy.^2;
        FM = std2(G)^2;

    case 'VOLA' % Vollath's correlation (Santos97)
        Image = double(Image);
        I1 = Image; I1(1:end-1,:) = Image(2:end,:);
        I2 = Image; I2(1:end-2,:) = Image(3:end,:);
        Image = Image.*(I1-I2);
        FM = mean2(Image);

    case 'WAVS' %Sum of Wavelet coeffs (Yang2003)
        [C,S] = wavedec2(Image, 1, 'db6');
        H = wrcoef2('h', C, S, 'db6', 1);   
        V = wrcoef2('v', C, S, 'db6', 1);   
        D = wrcoef2('d', C, S, 'db6', 1);   
        FM = abs(H) + abs(V) + abs(D);
        FM = mean2(FM);

    case 'WAVV' %Variance of  Wav...(Yang2003)
        [C,S] = wavedec2(Image, 1, 'db6');
        H = abs(wrcoef2('h', C, S, 'db6', 1));
        V = abs(wrcoef2('v', C, S, 'db6', 1));
        D = abs(wrcoef2('d', C, S, 'db6', 1));
        FM = std2(H)^2+std2(V)+std2(D);

    case 'WAVR'
        [C,S] = wavedec2(Image, 3, 'db6');
        H = abs(wrcoef2('h', C, S, 'db6', 1));   
        V = abs(wrcoef2('v', C, S, 'db6', 1));   
        D = abs(wrcoef2('d', C, S, 'db6', 1)); 
        A1 = abs(wrcoef2('a', C, S, 'db6', 1));
        A2 = abs(wrcoef2('a', C, S, 'db6', 2));
        A3 = abs(wrcoef2('a', C, S, 'db6', 3));
        A = A1 + A2 + A3;
        WH = H.^2 + V.^2 + D.^2;
        WH = mean2(WH);
        WL = mean2(A);
        FM = WH/WL;
    otherwise
        error('Unknown measure %s',upper(Measure))
end
 end
%************************************************************************
function fm = AcMomentum(Image)
[M N] = size(Image);
Hist = imhist(Image)/(M*N);
Hist = abs((0:255)-255*mean2(Image))'.*Hist;
fm = sum(Hist);
end

%******************************************************************
function fm = DctRatio(M)
MT = dct2(M).^2;
fm = (sum(MT(:))-MT(1,1))/MT(1,1);
end

%************************************************************************
function fm = ReRatio(M)
M = dct2(M);
fm = (M(1,2)^2+M(1,3)^2+M(2,1)^2+M(2,2)^2+M(3,1)^2)/(M(1,1)^2);
end
%******************************************************************

A few examples of OpenCV versions:

// OpenCV port of 'LAPM' algorithm (Nayar89)
double modifiedLaplacian(const cv::Mat& src)
{
    cv::Mat M = (Mat_(3, 1) << -1, 2, -1);
    cv::Mat G = cv::getGaussianKernel(3, -1, CV_64F);

    cv::Mat Lx;
    cv::sepFilter2D(src, Lx, CV_64F, M, G);

    cv::Mat Ly;
    cv::sepFilter2D(src, Ly, CV_64F, G, M);

    cv::Mat FM = cv::abs(Lx) + cv::abs(Ly);

    double focusMeasure = cv::mean(FM).val[0];
    return focusMeasure;
}

// OpenCV port of 'LAPV' algorithm (Pech2000)
double varianceOfLaplacian(const cv::Mat& src)
{
    cv::Mat lap;
    cv::Laplacian(src, lap, CV_64F);

    cv::Scalar mu, sigma;
    cv::meanStdDev(lap, mu, sigma);

    double focusMeasure = sigma.val[0]*sigma.val[0];
    return focusMeasure;
}

// OpenCV port of 'TENG' algorithm (Krotkov86)
double tenengrad(const cv::Mat& src, int ksize)
{
    cv::Mat Gx, Gy;
    cv::Sobel(src, Gx, CV_64F, 1, 0, ksize);
    cv::Sobel(src, Gy, CV_64F, 0, 1, ksize);

    cv::Mat FM = Gx.mul(Gx) + Gy.mul(Gy);

    double focusMeasure = cv::mean(FM).val[0];
    return focusMeasure;
}

// OpenCV port of 'GLVN' algorithm (Santos97)
double normalizedGraylevelVariance(const cv::Mat& src)
{
    cv::Scalar mu, sigma;
    cv::meanStdDev(src, mu, sigma);

    double focusMeasure = (sigma.val[0]*sigma.val[0]) / mu.val[0];
    return focusMeasure;
}

No guarantees on whether or not these measures are the best choice for your problem, but if you track down the papers associated with these measures, they may give you more insight. Hope you find the code useful! I know I did.