Spatial Smoother 1.0 for VirtualDub

Installation: copy ssmooth.vdf & this file in the VirtuaDub plugins directory.

This is a blur filter that operates only on pixels whose color is reasonably
close to each other. The intent is to reduce noise in the video images
while keeping the structure intact. In that way, it's similar to
Donald Graft's Smart Smoother. So why use it? It's quite a bit faster
with small diameters and the output, altough close, isn't identical so it
may be better suited for some particular video sequences. Additionaly, it
can work (albeit slowly) without MMX.

Bear in mind that this is my first VirtualDub plugin and I am by no means
a digital video expert.

You can adjust the behavior of the filter with the following parameters:

Diameter: A square of (Diameter * Diameter) around each pixel is processed. Speed
is falling rapidly as diameter increase. An especially fast routine is used
for diameter 3. With diameters above 7, you might be better off with D. Graft's filter.

Strength: Influences the amount of noise removed, but also the amount of details
blurred. Try first with the default setting of 3, then increase it if too much noise
is left or decrease it if it blurs too much. Strength 0 uses a very low treshold but
doesn't disable the filter completely. At Strength 18 it is a regular blur filter.

Thanks:
Avery Lee for is fantastic video editing program: VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org)
	I used the same pixel averaging technique as in his Temporal Smoother filter.
Donald Graft for his awesome collection of filters (http://sauron.mordor.net/dgraft)
Doom9 for the best DVD backup site on the net! (http://www.doom9.net).

Ioura Batugowski (dividee@caramail.com, http://users.win.be/ws200482/)
July 25, 2001

Copyright (c) 2001, All rights reserved
