Finding Approximately Repeated Scene Elements for Image Editing is a white paper by Ming-Ming Cheng, Fang-Lue Zhang, Niloy J. Mitra, Xiaolei Huang, Shi-Min Hu in which a process is employed to edit repeating elements in a scene procedurally. From the demonstration video, the system goes as far as having a procedural answer for missing parts that may be obscured by other objects in the scene. This opens up all kinds of possibilities in scene rearrangement, making edit transfers, deformation propagation, and object replacements.
I hope this is explored further, then put in CS5… unless gimp had it years ago, in which case forget it. Just kidding, hurry and make it a plugin.
