A real-time, continuous-scale image interpolation method is proposed based on a bilinear interpolation with directionally adaptive low-pass filtering. The proposed algorithm was optimized for hardware implementation. The ordinary bi-linear interpolation method has blocking artifacts. The proposed algorithm solves this problem using directionally adaptive low-pass filtering. The algorithm can also solve the severe blurring problem by selectively choosing low-pass filter coefficients. Therefore, the proposed interpolation algorithm can realize a high-quality image scaler for a range of imaging systems, such as digital cameras, CCTV and digital flat panel displays.