Entries |
Document | Title | Date |
20080212892 | Image Processing Device, Computer Program Product , and Image Processing Method - An image processing device includes: a saturated area extraction unit that extracts a saturated area corresponding to a saturated pixel from an image expressed by a color component signal of a predetermined color system corresponding to a pixel; a color information acquisition unit that acquires color information from a color component signal corresponding to a pixel contained in an area in contact with the saturated area of the image; and a color component signal modification unit that modifies a color component signal of a pixel in the saturated area so that color information on the saturated pixel contained in the saturated area approaches the color information acquired by the color information acquisition unit. | 09-04-2008 |
20080212893 | Displaying elevation information from a digital map - A method and apparatus are described for rendering a display image generated from digital map information. The method includes the steps of:
| 09-04-2008 |
20080219585 | Image Processing Apparatus, Image Apparatus, Image Processing Method, and Computer Program - An image processing apparatus includes the following elements. An image input unit receives a long-time exposure image and a short-time exposure image. An image analysis unit detects a brightness-change pixel in which a brightness change has occurred during a photographic period on the basis of analysis of pixel values in the long-time exposure image and the short-time exposure image. A pixel value correction unit corrects a pixel value of the detected brightness-change pixel. In the pixel value correction unit, a combined image generator selectively combines pixel values in the long-time exposure image and pixel values in the short-time exposure image to generate a combined image; an intermediate image generator generates a blurred image of the combined image; and an output image generator determines a pixel value of the detected brightness-change pixel using a pixel value of a corresponding pixel in each of the combined image and the blurred image. | 09-11-2008 |
20080219586 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - An image processing apparatus for automatically improving the contrast of an input image that is obtained from a digital camera or the like, and obtaining a sharper and clearing image. A contrast improvement unit ( | 09-11-2008 |
20080240605 | Image Processing Apparatus, Image Processing Method, and Image Processing Program - An image processing apparatus performs correction processing on image data. A night scene judgment unit judges whether an image represented by the image data is a night scene image. A correction unit performs correction on the image data by relatively strengthening a degree of expansion of luminosity range of the image data that is judged as being a night scene image by the night scene judgment unit in comparison with image data that is judged as not being a night scene image, so that the brightness range of the image data is enlarged. | 10-02-2008 |
20080240606 | IMAGE CORRECTION APPARATUS, IMAGE CORRECTION METHOD, SKIN DIAGNOSIS METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT - An image correction technology for causing a person image to look more beautiful is provided. Provided is an image correction apparatus a partial region specifying section that specifies a partial region of a skin that satisfies a predetermined condition, within a first image captured under a first image capturing condition; a corresponding region specifying section that specifies a corresponding region that corresponds to the partial region within a second image captured under a second image capturing condition that is different from the first image capturing condition; and an image correction section that corrects the second image by performing predetermined image processing to the corresponding region of the second image. | 10-02-2008 |
20080247665 | Method and apparatus for dynamic contrast enhancement - A method and apparatus for dynamic contrast enhancement is provided. The apparatus at least comprises a histogram calculator, a low-pass filter, a blending unit and a luma remapper. By means of blending a content-based histogram with a user-defined histogram, the invention solves a problem that the mean luma value is shifted too much due to a drastic adjustment. | 10-09-2008 |
20080247666 | DARKNESS CONTROL USING PATTERN MATCHING - The present invention is a method and apparatus for processing image data to accomplish tuning or adjustment of images, so as to modify at least the darkness thereof, using compact, efficient methods and designs. | 10-09-2008 |
20080253681 | Image Processing Method and Computer Software for Image Processing - The invention provides a method of image correction processing which comprises altering area image intensity values of an image according to an dynamic range compression image transform. The output image intensity of an area is altered, compared to the input image intensity, according to an area amplification coefficient. The amplification coefficient of an area is varied in dependence upon the amplification coefficient of at least one other neighbouring area. The invention preserves contrast in images that have been processed in order to compress dynamic range. | 10-16-2008 |
20080267526 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS - The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus which can restore, from a color and sensitivity mosaic image acquired using a CCD image sensor of the single plate type or the like, a color image signal of a wide dynamic range wherein the sensitivity characteristics of pixels are uniformized and each of the pixels has all of a plurality of color components. A sensitivity uniformization section uniformizes the sensitivities of pixels of a color and sensitivity mosaic image to produce a color mosaic image, and a color interpolation section interpolates color components of the pixels of the color mosaic image M to produce output images R, G and B. The present invention can be applied to a digital camera which converts a picked up optical image into a color image signal of a wide dynamic range. | 10-30-2008 |
20080273812 | Image-Correction Method and Image Pickup Apparatus - An image correcting method capable of performing highly accurate shading correction using a table having a small storage area without causing any deterioration of performance even when the shading characteristics vary dynamically. The image correcting method comprises a step for calculating the distance between the coordinates of a pixel constituting an image and a predetermined reference coordinates, a step for calculating a distance correction value by inputting the distance calculated at the distance calculating step to the variable of an N-order function (N is an integer of 1 or above), a step for calculating a correction coefficient corresponding to the distance correction value calculated at the distance correction value calculating step based on a table representing the correspondence between the distance correction value and the correction coefficient, and a step for correcting the signal of the pixel based on the correction coefficient calculated at the correction coefficient calculating step. | 11-06-2008 |
20080285884 | Image processing method, apparatus and program as well as imaging apparatus - An image processing method, comprises: an input step of inputting a color digital image; a white balance correction step of correcting white balance of the inputted digital image; an exposure correction step of correcting exposure of the digital image having the corrected white balance; a determination step of determining a pixel in which an output pixel value is saturated without being corrected to be underexposed by the exposure correction, among respective pixels in the digital image having the corrected white balance; and a pixel value correction step of setting only the determined pixel to be saturated as a correction target pixel and correcting the pixel value of the correction target pixel to be more than or equal to the pixel value. Thereby, the color attachment with respect to the blown-out highlight portion can be prevented at the time of the desensitization process. | 11-20-2008 |
20080292206 | Highlight Recovery Using Digital Lighting Module - The described methods and corresponding apparatus are for use in highlight recovery in a set of image data. The image data is inverted, treated by a digital lighting process, the subsequently inverted again. This allows the set of data image to be treated for dynamic range compression of detail in both the dark regions and the light regions by the same algorithm. In other words, the process applied to the dark regions can be performed by a correction algorithm and the process applied to the light regions performed by the same algorithm, but with the image data negated before and after the correction algorithm is applied. | 11-27-2008 |
20080292207 | Image processing apparatus and image processing method - An image processing apparatus is provided, including a brightness change level classifying unit, a dynamic weight calculating unit, and a brightness correcting unit. The brightness change level classifying unit compares a brightness change average value representing brightness changes from a pixel of interest to neighboring pixels around the pixel of interest with an upper threshold value and a lower threshold value and classifies the brightness change level of the pixel of interest into three types of levels according to the result of the comparison. An upper threshold value and a lower threshold value are predetermined based on the brightness of the pixel of interest. The dynamic weight calculating unit calculates different dynamic weights according to the brightness change level of the pixel of interest. The brightness correcting unit corrects the brightness of the pixel of interest, based on the dynamic weights. Accordingly, noise generated on a plane part of an image is minimized and a contour of the image is appropriately emphasized, consequently improving the definition of images. | 11-27-2008 |
20080310752 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT - A method of enhancing a contrast and an apparatus for enhancing a contrast are provided. The method of enhancing the contrast includes: dividing an image into a plurality of blocks and calculating an average luminance value of each block; interpolating a peripheral luminance value for each input pixel of the image by using the average luminance value; and enhancing the contrast of the input pixel by using the interpolated peripheral luminance value of the input pixel and a unique luminance value of the input pixel. | 12-18-2008 |
20080310753 | Method and system to detect and correct shine - A method and system to detect and correct shine within a digital image is disclosed. Many images would be more aesthetically pleasing if the shine, or reflectance, from was reduced. In one embodiment of the present invention, shine on the skin of a individual in a digital image is reduced to a more aesthetically pleasing level. In this embodiment, the image is first analyzed to determine the areas of skin. The skin areas are then analyzed to determine the intensity of shine on the skin and create a shine mask. The shine mask is then used to correct the shine by adjusting the shine to a more aesthetically pleasing level. | 12-18-2008 |
20080317374 | Method of modifying brightness of color pixels - An apparatus includes an extractor, a first subtractor, a second subtractor, a third subtractor, an offset generator and an adder. The extractor receives the color pixel and to provides a first, a second, and a third image value, wherein the first, the second, and the third image values are associated with the brightness of the color pixel. The first subtractor calculates a first offset between the first image value and a first expected image value. The second subtractor calculates a first difference between the first and the second image values. The third subtractor calculates a second difference between the first and the third image values. The offset generator defines a linear relation based on the first offset and the first image value, and generates a second and a third offset. The adder receives the second offset, the third offset, the second image value and the third image value to generate a second and a third expected image value. | 12-25-2008 |
20080317375 | Apparatus and methods for image restoration - The present invention relates to an apparatus and methods for performing image restoration. More specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus and methods which are capable of quickly restoring various sizes of selected areas of an image. In one embodiment, a user may select or mark a target region in an image which is to be restored. A source window may then be generated and a pixel from within the target region may be selected for restoration. The intensity distribution of pixels surrounding the selected pixel may be compared with other pixels in the image and a pixel to be used for restoration of the selected pixel may be chosen based on the comparison of the intensity distributions. Once a pixel is chosen for restoration, the selected pixel and its surrounding pixels may be restored using the intensity distribution of the chosen pixel and its surrounding pixels. The method may continue in this manner until all pixels within the target region have been restored. | 12-25-2008 |
20080317376 | Automatic image correction providing multiple user-selectable options - An arrangement is provided for automatically correcting a digital image by first examining the image to determine the class or type of correction that is needed to produce a more accurate rendition. The classes or types of corrections may include such items as exposure, color, depth of field, sharpness, distortion, and combinations thereof. The type of correction that is needed by any particular digital image is determined from an analysis of the image itself. Instead of presenting the user with a single corrected image, the user is typically presented with different renditions of the image. Each rendition corrects for the particular type of correction that has been identified, but in different ways from one another. | 12-25-2008 |
20080317377 | IMAGE CODING APPARATUS AND IMAGE CODING METHOD - The image coding apparatus according to the present invention is an image coding apparatus, including an imaging unit, a chroma quantization width adjustment unit configured to determine a chroma quantization width using a first method when the amount of the incident light on the imaging unit is larger than the predetermined amount, and to adjust the chroma quantization width such that the chroma quantization width is larger than a quantization width determined using the first method when the light amount judging unit judges that the amount of the incident light is smaller than the predetermined amount, and a luma quantization width adjustment unit configured to determine a luma quantization width using a second method without being dependent on the amount of the incident light. | 12-25-2008 |
20090003725 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE FOR DETECTING AND SUPPRESSING SHADOWS, METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM - An image processing device for the detection and suppression of shadows in a camera image of a surveilled scene, the camera image optionally showing static objects with static shadow regions and moving objects with dynamic shadow regions, includes a long-term module, which is designed to generate a long-term reference image of the surveilled scene by evaluating a long-term observation of a particular scene, a mid-term module, which is designed to generate a mid-term reference image of the surveilled scene by evaluating a mid-term observation of the particular scene, and a shadow detection module, which is designed to process camera image—using information technology—with long-term reference image and mid-term reference image, in order to detect and suppress shadows. | 01-01-2009 |
20090003726 | ILLUMINATION NORMALIZING METHOD AND APPARATUS - An illumination normalizing apparatus and a method are disclosed. The illumination normalizing apparatus measures a discontinuity of each pixel of an input image, the discontinuity including a spatial gradient and a local inhomogeneity, produces a weight of each pixel from the discontinuity by using a transfer function, produces an estimated illumination by repeating a convolution operation on each weight, and subtracts the estimated illumination from the input image. | 01-01-2009 |
20090010563 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ADJUSTING SENSITIVITY OF CAMERA MODULE - A system for adjusting a sensitivity of a camera module includes a memory unit configured for storing a plurality of pre-initialized pixel adjusting maps; an image capturing unit configured for capturing an image from the camera module and acquiring pixel values of the image to determine a pixel value range of the pixel values; a comparison unit configured for comparing the pixel range with the input-ranges of the pixel adjusting maps to determine which one of the input ranges of the pixel adjusting maps the pixel value range of the image; and an adjusting unit configured for adjusting the pixel value of the image to adjusting the sensitivity of the camera module according to the determined pixel adjusting map and outputting adjusted pixel values. The system can not only breakthrough the limit of the self-character of the amplifier, but also decrease noise in course of adjusting the sensitivity of the camera module. | 01-08-2009 |
20090016636 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, AND METHOD, PROGRAM AND RECORDING MEDIUM - The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, method, program and recording medium, which make it possible to remove an obstacle, which blocks the field of view, and provide an image of a pleasant field of view. An interference status detector determines whether it is necessary to correct an image obtained by an image pickup unit, and an obstacle detector detects a pixel corresponding to an obstacle in an obtained image. An obstacle removal processor, based on output from a movement status controller and an obstacle registry, replaces the pixel of the obstacle in the frame of the image to be corrected with a corresponding pixel in the chronologically previous frame, carries out correction so as to remove the obstacle from the image, and outputs the corrected image to a display unit. | 01-15-2009 |
20090016637 | ELECTRONIC APPLIANCE - An electronic appliance is equipped with: a voice processing unit for executing one voice processing operation selected from plural sorts of voice processing operations; a zapping detecting unit for detecting a zapping condition; and a process switching unit for switching the presently executed voice processing operation to a different voice processing operation in response to a detection result for indicating whether or not the zapping condition is detected. When the zapping detecting unit detects the zapping condition, the process switching unit controls the voice processing unit to switch the presently executed voice processing operation to a voice processing operation which does not contain a sound quality improving function. | 01-15-2009 |
20090022417 | Method and Apparatus for An Intuitive Digital Image Processing System That Enhances Digital Images - To better realize the great potential of amateur digital photography, the present invention introduces an intuitive system for digital processing. The system of the present invention allows a user to enhance digital images that appear dark or dull. In one embodiment, the user activates an image enhancement button on a graphical user interface using cursor control device such as a mouse button. In one embodiment, the digital image enhancement system is implemented using a nonlinear brightness level transformation correction and a pseudo gamma correction. The parameters for both the nonlinear brightness level transformation correction and a pseudo gamma correction are determined from examining the properties of the image to be enhanced. | 01-22-2009 |
20090028460 | Method And Apparatus For Adjusting Backlight Brightness - A method for adjusting backlight brightness for an image display device whose backlights are arranged in an M×N, 2-dimensional array, and an apparatus for realizing this are provided. The method comprises a full search step determining the brightness adjustment value for each of the M×N image blocks corresponding to the backlights for the entire input image and selecting a reference block; a partial search step determining the brightness adjustment value for the selected reference block and surrounding blocks thereof for the image frame inputted following the full search step and reselecting a reference block based on the brightness adjustment value of the previous reference block and surrounding blocks thereof; and an adjustment step adjusting brightness of the backlights in accordance with the brightness adjustment value for each block as determined by the full search step and/or partial search step. In accordance with the present invention, it is possible to increase the speed of image analysis for a display that uses backlights. Likewise, controlling the backlight using the characteristics of the analyzed image enables reducing power consumption and increasing the contrast ratio by applying backlight brightness according to the characteristics of the image. | 01-29-2009 |
20090034869 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR IMAGE BACKGROUND SUPPRESSION USING NEUTRAL ADJUSTMENT OF COLOR CHANNELS - Printing systems and methods are presented for image background and neutral adjustment of luminance-chrominance pixel values corresponding to a scanned image, in which white and black pixels are identified which have luminance values close to whitepoint and blackpoint values for the image, and which have chrominance values close to the chrominance neutral point. The chrominance values of these identified white and black pixels are selectively reduced based at least partially on proximity to the chrominance neutral point and chrominance of one or more neighboring pixels. | 02-05-2009 |
20090034870 | Unified spatial image processing - Various embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and systems for image processing that are unified in nature, carrying out many image-enhancement tasks together in a unified approach, rather than sequentially executing separately implemented, discrete image-enhancement tasks. In addition, the methods and systems of the present invention can apply image-enhancement to local, spatial regions of an image, rather than relying on global application of enhancement techniques that result in production of artifacts and distortions. In certain embodiments of the present invention, various different types of intermediate images are produced at each of a number of different scales from a received, input image. From these intermediate images, a photographic mask and temporary image are obtained, and the photographic mask and temporary image are then employed, along with a look-up table or function that receives values from the photographic mask and temporary image, to compute an enhanced, output image. In a described embodiment of the present invention, the intermediate images include low-pass, band-pass, photographic-mask, and temporary-image intermediate images computed at each of a number of different scales. | 02-05-2009 |
20090034871 | Method and system for enhancing image signals and other signals to increase perception of depth - Various embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and systems for processing signals, particularly signals encoding two-dimensional images, such as photographs, video frames, graphics, and other visually displayed information. Rather than attempting 3D-boosting by attempting a global contrast enhancement, method and system embodiments of the present invention generate a soft-segmented image that is separately contrast enhanced, segment-by-segment, to produce an enhanced soft-segmented image. A details image is then computed, and is combined with the enhanced soft-segmented image to produce an intermediate image, the brightness of which is adjusted to produce a 3D-boosted output image. Local contrast enhancement provides for proportional enhancement of homogenous regions, resulting in 3D-boosting without introduction of anomalies, artifacts, and distortion. | 02-05-2009 |
20090034872 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INCREASING BRIGHTNESS OF IMAGE CAPTURED IN LOW LIGHT - An exemplary method for increasing brightness of an image captured in low light includes: transforming the captured image into an original image that has a brightness component; copying the brightness component of the original image as a brightness image; inverting the brightness image into a negative image; and incorporating the negative image into the original image such that a predetermined percentage of gray scale values of pixels of the negative image corresponding to pixels in a dark portion of the original image are respectively added to gray scale values of the pixels in the dark portion of the original image to produce a processed image. | 02-05-2009 |
20090041375 | VIEWING WIDE ANGLE IMAGES USING DYNAMIC TONE MAPPING - A dynamic tone mapping technique is presented that produces a local tone map for a sub-image of a wide-angle, high dynamic range (HDR), which is used in rendering the sub-image for display. The technique generally involves first computing a global tone map of the wide-angle, HDR image in advance of rendering the sub-image. The global tone map is then used during rendering to compute a local tone map based on the average luminance and contrast of the pixels of the sub-image. In addition, the sub-image can be tone mapped as part of the rendering of a sequence of sub-images during a viewer-executed panning and/or zooming session. In this case, the local tone maps can be kept from changing too rapidly by adding a hysteresis feature to smooth out the intensity changes between successive sub-images. | 02-12-2009 |
20090041376 | Method for real-time implementable local tone mapping for high dynamic range images - The present invention relates to a method capable of real-time implementable local tone mapping of high dynamic range images. In one embodiment, the present invention relates to a method capable of accomplishing real-time local tone mapping of high dynamic range images so that they have clear details without, for example, halo artifacts when viewed on standard display devices. In another embodiment, the present invention relates to a method capable of accomplishing real-time local tone mapping of high dynamic range images so that they have clear details without, for example, halo artifacts when viewed on standard display devices where such a method utilizes, in part, a modified Reinhard operator. | 02-12-2009 |
20090041377 | Method and system for defect image correction - A method and system for defect image correction is disclosed. The present invention comprises a method and system for defect image correction. The present invention generally relates to detecting and correcting defects in one or more digital images caused by occlusions when the image was taken. | 02-12-2009 |
20090046944 | Restoration of Color Components in an Image Model - This invention relates to a method for improving image quality of a digital image captured with an imaging module comprising at least imaging optics and an image sensor, where the image is formed through the imaging optics, the image consisting of at least one colour component. In the method, the degradation information of each colour component of the image is found and is used for improving image quality. The degradation information of each colour component is specified by a point-spread function. Each colour component is restored by the degradation function. The image can be unprocessed image data. The invention also relates to several alternatives for implementing the restoration, and for controlling and regularizing the inverse process independently of the image degradation. The invention also relates to a device, to a module, to a system and to a computer program products and to a program modules. | 02-19-2009 |
20090046945 | METHOD OF RENDERING CROSS IMAGES UNOBSERVABLE PARTICULARLY IN PROJECTED OR PRINTED PHOTOGRAPHIC REPRODUCTIONS, AND REPRODUCTION THUS OBTAINED - The method renders unobservable cross images with low light intensity that appear in the combined reproduction of various different images. It consists of adding a percentage in negative of each of these cross images to the positive of the correct image prior to reproduction, so that as a result of this addition it is possible to obtain, instead of the cross image, a uniform, contrastless image, i.e. where all the points have the same light intensity, which is generally so small as to be unobservable. | 02-19-2009 |
20090060378 | User Interface Methods And Systems For Image Brightness And Contrast - An image editing user interface includes a first control adapted to alter an image property of an image in response to a user input and a second control adapted to operate in cooperation with the first control to alter the image property in response to a user input. The image property is brightness and the first control alters brightness over a range of image values between two endpoints and the second control defines at least one of the endpoints. | 03-05-2009 |
20090060379 | TONE CORRECTING APPARATUS PROVIDING IMPROVED TONE CORRECTION ON IMAGE - A tone correcting apparatus includes: a first acquiring unit that acquires first brightness information indicating brightness of each of a plurality of block regions that are set to cover an entire area of an image; a face detecting unit that detects a face portion where a human face is positioned in the image; a second acquiring unit that acquires second brightness information indicating brightness of the face portion detected by the face detecting unit; and a correction unit that corrects brightness of the image based on the first brightness information and the second brightness information. | 03-05-2009 |
20090067743 | PREPROCESSING FOR INFORMATION PATTERN ANALYSIS - Pre-processing techniques for processing an image to improve the distinctiveness of an information pattern captured in the image before the information pattern is analyzed in a decoding process. The brightness of an image first is normalized by dividing the image into blocks of areas, such as pixels. A brightness distribution value then is determined for each area of the image by fitting the brightness of its surrounding blocks using bilinear interpolation and extrapolation, and a normalized brightness value for each area can then be obtained by dividing the original brightness value by the brightness distribution value. Next, masks are created to distinguish the information pattern from content captured in the image. The masks may be generated based upon contrast differences between the brightness of pixels representing the information pattern, the brightness of pixels representing content, and the brightness of pixels representing the background of the writing medium. | 03-12-2009 |
20090067744 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD, RECORDING MEDIUM, AND PROGRAM - For each pixel read from an imaging device, a horizontal counter value and a vertical counter value corresponding to the pixel are supplied from a signal generator to a distance computation section via an optical-axis-center coordinate setting section and an up-and-down and right-and-left weighting section. In the distance computation section, the distance to the optical-axis center is computed, and correction coefficients for the zoom wide end and for the zoom tele end, which correspond to the distance, are obtained by look-up tables. The two obtained correction coefficients are blended at a mixture ratio determined by a blend ratio setting section. The blended shading correction coefficients are gain adjusted by a gain adjustment section, after which they are supplied to a correction section. As a result, a correction corresponding to the distance to the optical-axis-center position is performed on the signal of each pixel supplied from an imaging section. | 03-12-2009 |
20090080793 | Image adjustment apparatus and method thereof - The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method thereof for adjusting a luminance of an image signal. The apparatus includes a complementary circuit, a statistical circuit, a calculating circuit, and a blending circuit. The complementary circuit receives an image signal to generate a complementary luminance according to the luminance of the image signal. The statistical circuit receives the image signal to generate a statistical signal according to the luminance of the image signal. The calculating circuit receives the image signal, the complementary luminance, and the statistical signal to generate a calculated luminance of the image signal. The blending circuit generates an output image signal according to the calculated luminance and the luminance of the image signal. A video display device can thereby displays optimum pictures according to the output image signal. | 03-26-2009 |
20090080794 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE, MICROCOMPUTER, AND ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENT - An image processing device that receives pixel-unit image data in a plurality of frames in time series and performs image processing, the image data being captured by an imaging section, the image processing device including a brightness change detection section that integrates pixel values or pixel components relating to luminance of at least part of pixels of the received image data in each of the frames to calculate an integrated value, compares the integrated value with a given comparison target value, and detects a change in brightness of an image in each of the frames based on a comparison result. | 03-26-2009 |
20090080795 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD - An image processing apparatus comprises an extractor for extracting a brightness component from image data; a scale converter for obtaining a distribution of the brightness component on relatively large scale; a brightness component improver for improving the distribution of the brightness component of the image data by using the brightness component and an output of the converter; and an image reproducer for reproducing the image data by using an output of the improver as a distribution of a brightness component of a new image, wherein the apparatus further comprises a face detector for detecting a face area from the image data, and the improver adjusts a degree of improvement by using a distribution of a brightness component of the face area being an output of the detector. Thus, it is possible to automatically adjust the degree of improvement of the luminance distribution according to the image data to be processed. | 03-26-2009 |
20090103830 | Method of Simulating the Star Cross Effect of a Light Source and Electronic Apparatus Using The Same - A method of simulating the star cross effect of a light source and an electronic apparatus using the method are disclosed. The method comprises the following steps: setting an image processing parameter; obtaining an image information with the electronic apparatus; analyzing the image information to select each usable point light source; and conducting image processing of the star cross effect to each point light source. | 04-23-2009 |
20090103831 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND PROGRAM THEREFOR - An image processing apparatus processes an input image while also considering the luminous intensity information thereof, and thereby generates an output image wherein the apparent object surface roughness has been enhanced with respect to the input image. The image processing apparatus includes a luminous intensity information separator that separates the input image information into global luminous intensity information and local luminous intensity information, a shadow component generator that generates a shadow component of the image on the basis of the local luminous intensity information, and an image compositor that generates an output image by adding shadow image information to the input image information, with the shadow image information being generated from the shadow component and from a value based on the input image information. | 04-23-2009 |
20090110322 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR ESTIMATING ILLUMINATION SOURCE CHARACTERISTICS FROM A SINGLE IMAGE - Certain embodiments provide systems and methods for determining light source characteristics from an image. An image having pixels is received that is affected by a light source. A silhouette boundary is received. The image may be filtered to decrease diffuse reflectivity. The presence of light sources is estimated by identifying a local maxima pixel around the silhouette boundary. The local maxima pixel may be associated with the light source. A slant angle that is associated with the light source is estimated using the silhouette boundary. A tilt angle associated with the light source is estimated using the slant angle and local maxima pixel intensity. The relative intensity of each light source may be determined. The ambient light intensity of the image may be determined. The characteristics, such as the slant angle and tilt angle, may be provided to a user. | 04-30-2009 |
20090110323 | Method and system for dual-envelope image enhancement - Various embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and systems for processing signals, particularly signals encoding two-dimensional images, such as photographs, video frames, graphics, and other visually displayed information. In various method embodiments of the present invention, an input image signal is decomposed into an upper-envelope function, a lower-envelope function, and a details function. One or both of the upper-envelope and lower-envelope functions are then modified to produce one or more image-enhancing effects when the modified upper-envelope and lower-envelope functions are recombined with the details function to produce an enhanced image signal. | 04-30-2009 |
20090123086 | VIEW ENVIRONMENT CONTROL SYSTEM - It is possible to control ambient illumination so as to be appropriate for an atmosphere of a scene to be imaged and shot setting intended by a video producer. A view environment control device includes a scene section detection processing unit ( | 05-14-2009 |
20090129697 | ELECTRONIC DEVICE, DUAL VIEW DISPLAY AND THE SIGNAL COMPENSATING APPARATUS AND METHOD THEREOF - The present invention relates to a signal compensating apparatus, which is used for generating a plurality of image control signals to control a plurality of sub-pixels of a display correspondingly, so that a backlight can form a left image and a right image via the plurality of sub-pixels after passing through an optical grating. The signal compensating apparatus comprises an input unit for receiving a plurality of image input signals sequentially, a compensating unit that compensates the received N-th image input signal based on the received (N+1)th image input signal to produce the N-th image control signal and an output unit for outputting the N-th image control signal to the sub-pixel corresponding to the N-th image input signal. | 05-21-2009 |
20090129698 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR ELIMINATING IMAGE BLUR BY PIXEL-BASED PROCESSING - A method for eliminating image blur includes: detecting the difference in pixel value between two corresponding pixels in two continuous images to generate a difference value; and adjusting the luminance of the two corresponding pixels according to the difference value, wherein when the difference value exceeds a predetermined value, the luminance of one pixel of the two corresponding pixels is increased and the luminance of the other pixel is decreased. | 05-21-2009 |
20090142000 | Image processing apparatus and method, program, and recording medium - An image processing apparatus includes a computation unit that determines an interpolation process starting point and gradient on the basis of a change point at which a difference between pixel values of adjacent pixels of an image signal is greater than zero and is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold value, wherein a position of a pixel scanned earlier or later than the change point by substantially one-half a continuous width of pixels having an identical grayscale value is set as the starting point and the gradient is determined based on a difference between pixel values before and after the change point and the continuous width, and a conversion unit that converts pixel values of the image signal on the basis of the determined starting point and gradient so that a grayscale change from the interpolation process starting point in the image signal corresponds to the gradient. | 06-04-2009 |
20090169129 | Method for automatically transforming color space and prospect of an imaging device - A method for automatically transforming color space and prospects of an imaging device is disclosed. The method at least includes: selecting a source image and a target image; transforming color space automatically wherein the color spaces of the two images are respectively transformed into another color space; matching levels, wherein features are grouped and the most similar adjacent field is searched; and copying the chrominance values—distributing the best matched brightness level distributions of said another color space of the source image and the target image, finding the pixels corresponding to the target image, and then copying the chrominance values to the source image to transform prospects. | 07-02-2009 |
20090175555 | Illumination systems and methods for computer imagers - The present invention can provide solutions to many common imaging problems, such as, for example, unevenly distributed illumination, shadows, white balance adjustment, colored ambient light and high dynamic range imaging. Imaging systems and methods can be provided through a computer (e.g., laptop or desktop) such that the system or method can take advantage of the computer's processing power to provide functionality that goes beyond typical camera. Such an imaging system may include an imaging device, a camera, a light source and a user interface. | 07-09-2009 |
20090175556 | Methods, apparatuses and systems providing pixel value adjustment for images produced by a camera having multiple optical states - Methods, apparatuses and systems for storing approximations of multiple spatial pixel value adjustment surfaces for use in pixel value correction. The adjustment surfaces may be used for positional gain adjustment. A representation of the multiple adjustment surfaces is stored as coefficients representing a multi-dimensional solid of two-dimensional adjustment surfaces. The stored coefficients are used to determine a plurality of additional sets of coefficients which sets are then in turn used to determine pixel correction values of adjustment surfaces. | 07-09-2009 |
20090180708 | Illumination light quantity setting method in image measuring instrument - An image measuring instrument includes a camera that images a plurality of measured points based on a preset measuring procedure, and an illumination unit that irradiates the measured points. The image measuring instrument measures a dimension and a shape of a to-be-measured object while the illumination unit irradiates light having illumination light quantity corresponding to an illumination preset value with reference to the illumination preset value that is preliminarily set for every measured point. An illumination light quantity setting method includes a command signal output step that outputs a command signal for irradiating light having the illumination light quantity corresponding to the illumination preset value for every measured point, an offset value assigning step that assigns an offset value to the command signal to be sent to the illumination unit, and a setting step that sets the offset value to be variable. | 07-16-2009 |
20090190854 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVING BRIGHTNESS UNIFORMITY IN AN IMAGE - In a method and apparatus for improving the brightness uniformity in an image, signals are acquired using a radio frequency receiving coil, and noise in the acquired signals is normalized so as to produce an image, then the brightness of various pixels in the image is determined according to the sensitivity of the radio frequency receiving coil. The brightness of the image is then made uniform by compensating the brightness of the various pixels in the image. | 07-30-2009 |
20090232411 | METHOD FOR ENHANCING PERCEPTIBILITY OF IMAGE - A method for enhancing a perceptibility of an image, includes the steps of: processing the image in accordance with a first luminance characteristic and a second luminance characteristic of the image, wherein a plurality of pixels with the first luminance characteristic are brighter than a plurality of pixels with the second luminance characteristic; compressing the plurality of pixels with the first luminance characteristic; and adjusting the plurality of pixels with the second luminance characteristic. | 09-17-2009 |
20090232412 | System and Method for Comparing Images With Different Contrast Levels - Systems and methods of automatically adjusting brightness of a digital image are provided. A particular method includes accessing data including a first digital image and identifying text and background in the first digital image. The method also includes calculating an average pixel value exclusive of the text and the background for the first digital image. The method further includes adjusting a brightness setting associated with the first digital image based on the calculated average pixel value. | 09-17-2009 |
20090252432 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT - Apparatus and method for contrast enhancement are disclosed. An adjustable blending unit is utilized for adjustably blending a linear contrast function with a nonlinear contrast function, thereby resulting in an adjustable contrast curve. The nonlinear contrast function is adjustable by a blending parameter such that distance of the contrast curve to linear contrast curve may be changed. | 10-08-2009 |
20090257677 | Per-Channel Image Intensity Correction - Techniques for per-channel image intensity correction includes linear interpolation of each channel of spectral data to generate corrected spectral data. | 10-15-2009 |
20090257678 | IMAGE PROCESSING CIRCUIT AND METHOD THEREOF FOR ENHANCING TEXT DISPLAYING - An image processing circuit and method thereof for enhancing text displaying of an image are provided. The image processing circuit performs the method. Firstly, at least a first illumination area and at least a second illumination, which is located adjacent to the first illumination area in the image are defined according to luminance values of a plurality of pixels of the image. Next, a luminance regulation value of at least one of the pixels in the first illumination area is calculated, and the luminance value of the corresponding pixel in the first illumination area is adjusted according to the luminance regulation value. During processing of the image, the luminance values of all of the pixels in the second illumination area are restricted from any adjustment. | 10-15-2009 |
20090268979 | IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - The invention discloses an image processing method. The image processing method utilizes the relatively low point and the relatively high point of the luminance of the pixels in the frame to generate the crest lines. Then, various image processing are performed according to the state of the crest line. | 10-29-2009 |
20090268980 | Image generating apparatus, image generating method and computer product - An image generating apparatus that generates an output image using a difference between an uncorrected pixel in an image and a smoothed pixel obtained by smoothing the uncorrected pixel. The image generating apparatus includes a storage unit, a tone-converted uncorrected pixel generating unit, a tone-converted smoothed pixel generating unit, and an output image generating unit. The storage unit stores an uncorrected pixel tone table for converting the uncorrected pixel and a smoothed pixel tone table for converting the smoothed pixel. The tone-converted uncorrected pixel generating unit converts the uncorrected pixel to a tone-converted uncorrected pixel based on the uncorrected pixel tone table. The tone-converted smoothed pixel generating unit converts the smoothed pixel to a tone-converted smoothed pixel based on the smoothed pixel tone table. The output image generating unit generates the output image based on a difference between the tone-converted uncorrected pixel and the tone-converted smoothed pixel. | 10-29-2009 |
20090274387 | METHOD OF CAPTURING HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGES WITH OBJECTS IN THE SCENE - Methods, image processors and imaging devices for capturing a high dynamic range (HDR) image. Multiple images of a scene are captured at respectively different exposure settings. A further image of an object placed in the scene is captured at one exposure setting. A first radiance image is formed from the multiple images. A second radiance image is formed from the further image. The first radiance image and the second radiance image are merged to form the HDR image. | 11-05-2009 |
20090274388 | IMAGE CORRECTION ACROSS MULTIPLE SPECTRAL REGIMES - Systems, including apparatus and methods, for obtaining and/or correcting images, particularly from atmospheric and/or other distortions. These corrections may involve, among others, determining corrective information in a first (e.g., visible) wavelength regime, and then applying the corrective information in a second (e.g., longer) wavelength regime, such as infrared (IR) or millimeter-wave (MMW) wavelengths, in real time or with post-processing. For example, these corrections may include scaling a phase diversity correction from one wavelength to another. These systems may be useful in any suitable imaging context, including navigation, targeting, search and rescue, law enforcement, and/or surveillance, among others. | 11-05-2009 |
20090274389 | IMAGE PROCESSOR, INTEGRATED CIRCUIT DEVICE, AND ELECTRONIC APPARATUS - An image processor includes a statistic-data acquiring section acquiring statistic data of a luminance value of a displayed image, the statistic-value acquiring section acquires, as the statistic data, a first index regarding a shadow pixel group and a second index regarding a highlight pixel group; a brightness index computing section computing a brightness index of the displayed image based on the statistic data, the brightness index computing section computing the brightness index from the first and the second indexes; a filtering section filtering luminance values of at least a part of a plurality of pixels included in a target pixel region of the displayed image to compute a local average luminance value; and a contrast correcting section performing contrast correction of the displayed image based on the brightness index and the local average luminance value. | 11-05-2009 |
20090279807 | SYSTEM, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMAGE PROCESSING AND IMAGE FORMAT - According to the present invention, a polarized image is captured, a variation in its light intensity is approximated with a sinusoidal function, and then the object is spatially divided into a specular reflection area (S-area) and a diffuse reflection area (D-area) in Step S | 11-12-2009 |
20090285503 | PRINT PROOFING USING MOTTLING TILE - A method for producing mottling in an image includes modifying digital colorant information in a digital image data file for at least one of a plurality of colorants. The degree of modification is based on digital colorant information in the digital image data file, mottling information from a mottling tile, and a colorant gain curve for at least one colorant. The colorant gain curve is obtained by determining a tint percentage, the variation of the tint of the printed at least one colorant when printed at a tint percentage on volume printing stock. The mottling information has a spatial frequency distribution substantially equal to the spatial frequency distribution of the mottling produced by at least one colorant on a volume printing stock. The method allows the digital image to emulate the image that would result if the digital image was printed on a volume printer on high volume printing stock. | 11-19-2009 |
20090297058 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMAGE RECONSTRUCTION FOR A SYNTHETIC APERTURE GAMMA RAY IMAGER - An imaging system includes a platform having mounted thereon an imaging device. The imaging device includes a first detector and a second detector. The imaging system includes a mask having a first pattern of apertures therein, the mask positioned on a first side of the first detector, an anti-mask having a second pattern of apertures therein, wherein the second pattern is derived from the first pattern, the anti-mask positioned on a first side of the second detector, and a computer configured to acquire a plurality of mask datasets and anti-mask datasets of a gamma source, add one of the mask datasets and subtract its respective anti-mask dataset to create a far-field dataset, adjust the far-field image dataset, reconstruct a near-field image of the source using the far-field dataset, and apply an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm to one of the far-field image dataset and the near-field image to enhance contrast. | 12-03-2009 |
20090310883 | Image processing apparatus, method, and program - A shadow region extraction method capable of extracting a shadow region from contrast enhanced three-dimensional images obtained at different time points in an improved manner. The method includes the steps of detecting a first shadow region from a contrast enhanced two-dimensional image constituting a contrast enhanced three-dimensional image obtained at a first time point among a plurality of contrast enhanced three-dimensional images of a subject obtained at different time points, detecting, by the use of position information of a point in the first shadow region, a second shadow region corresponding to the first shadow region from a contrast enhanced two-dimensional image constituting a contrast enhanced three-dimensional image obtained at a second time point different from the first time point, and displaying the first shadow region and the second shadow region. | 12-17-2009 |
20090310884 | NOISE REDUCTION METHOD AND NOISE REDUCTION APPARATUS - The present invention provides a noise reduction method for use in reducing noise of a digital image, the method comprising steps of: providing a plurality of luminance threshold values; determining a plurality of luminance feature values according to the luminance value of a target pixel and the luminance values of neighboring pixels of the target pixel; determining whether the target pixel is a noise point based on the comparison between each of the luminance feature values and each of the luminance threshold values corresponding thereto, respectively; and adjusting the luminance value, a first chrominance value and a second chrominance value of the target pixel if the target pixel is determined as a noise point. Using the noise reduction method of the present invention, not only noise of a digital image can be identified, but also the degradation caused by the noise can be reduced and thus the overall picture quality can be improved. | 12-17-2009 |
20090317017 | IMAGE CHARACTERISTIC ORIENTED TONE MAPPING FOR HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGES - A method and system map high dynamic range images to low dynamic range images. An input set of luminance values can be divided into separate regions corresponding to particular luminance value ranges. A region value can be determined for each region. Based at least in part on the region value, a quantity of range assigned to each region for tone mapping can be dynamically adjusted until each region meets a decision criterion or stopping condition, referred to herein as “concentration.” A region can be said to be concentrated if all luminance values therein are within a concentration interval or range. After a region is concentrated, it can be tone-mapped by quantization. | 12-24-2009 |
20090317018 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ADJUSTING BACKLIGHT IN MEASUREMENT OF A PROFILE IMAGE - A computer-implemented method for adjusting backlight in measurement of a profile image of an object includes setting a light source of an image measuring machine to an original intensity level, obtaining the profile image of the object laid on the image measuring machine, and performing a mean filter processing and a binary image processing on the profile image. The method further includes setting intensity variables to adjust backlight intensity of the light source, uses the intensity variables to calculate an optimum intensity level of the backlight intensity utilizing an iterative method, and adjusting the backlight intensity of the light source to the optimum intensity level to obtain an optimum profile image of the object. | 12-24-2009 |
20090324124 | Color adjustment interface for high speed color printer - A color adjustment interface includes an original image thumbnail representing a version of an image prior to modification, a current image thumbnail representing a version of an image after a modification and a color polygon including a multitude of variation image thumbnails each representing a color variation. Each selection of a variation image thumbnail modifies the current image thumbnail in an adjustment towards a color represented by the selected variation image. | 12-31-2009 |
20090324125 | Image Processing Apparatus and Method, and Program - An image processing apparatus includes: a difference-value calculation mechanism calculating a difference value between the first accumulated value produced by accumulating luminance values of a plurality of pixels in a first image and the second accumulated value produced by accumulating luminance values of a plurality of pixels in a second image having a difference in time with the first image; a threshold-value creation mechanism for creating a plurality of threshold values on the difference value in accordance with the first accumulated value, corresponding to the luminance change levels in order to grade a luminance change between the first image and the second image by a luminance change level indicating a degree of the luminance change; and a luminance-change-level determination mechanism for determining the luminance change level corresponding to the difference value on the basis of the plurality of threshold values. | 12-31-2009 |
20100002954 | Reducing Signal Overshoots And Undershoots In Demosaicking - An image processing method that demosaicks a mosaic input image to generate a full color output image. The image processing method calculates both vertical and horizontal luminance-chrominance difference components for each pixel of the mosaic input image. Next, the image processing method calculates an enhanced version of both vertical and horizontal luminance-chrominance difference components for each pixel of the mosaic input image. Then, the image processing method interpolates a G component for each of the original R and B components. Next, the image processing method detects a signal overshoot or undershoot in each interpolated G component and to clamps each interpolated G component with a detected signal overshoot or undershoot to the closest neighboring original G component. Next, the image processing method interpolates missing R and/or B components in each pixel location of the captured image. | 01-07-2010 |
20100014775 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - An image processing apparatus includes a detection circuit configured to detect an image, a luminance correction circuit configured to determine luminance of the detected image and to execute correction for reducing a luminance variation in the detected image, and an extraction circuit configured to extract feature amount data from the detected image corrected by the correction circuit for use in authentication processing. | 01-21-2010 |
20100021077 | Image quality - A magnified image is improved by integrating the wavelength specific component into that image. A magnified images obtained, and at least one wavelength specific component images also obtained. The different images are converted in color space, and different channels, indicative of the different parts of the image shows, are also obtained. For example, the image may be converted to an L*a*b* color space, and the luminance channel of the wavelength specific component may be used to enhance or replace the luminance channel of the magnified image. | 01-28-2010 |
20100027907 | DIFFERENTIAL IMAGE ENHANCEMENT - Techniques for differentially enhancing selected areas within a digital image are disclosed. In certain embodiments, one or more attributes of a selected pixel or a group of pixels is determined. Examples of such attributes include color properties, grayscale properties, and/or multi-pixel properties, such as texture. In certain embodiments, the attribute may be used in conjunction with the properties of a modification tool, such as a brush, to selectively modify pixels having the attribute value or a similar attribute value. | 02-04-2010 |
20100027908 | Distortion of Digital Images Using Spatial Offsets From Image Reference Points - A method for distorting a digital image comprising receiving the coordinates of one or more than one image reference point defined by a user within the digital image, receiving one or more than one spatial offset assigned by the user and associated with the coordinates of the one or more than one defined image reference point, providing a mixing function algorithm embodied on a computer-readable medium for distorting the digital image, calculating an offset matrix by applying the mixing function algorithm based on the one or more than one spatial offset and the coordinates of the one or more than one defined image reference point; and distorting the digital image by application of the offset matrix. A graphic tag may be associated with each of the defined image reference points and displayed over the digital image, and the assignment of the spatial offset may be accomplished by movement of the graphic tag with the pointing device. Abstract image reference points may be used to limit distortion. | 02-04-2010 |
20100046852 | Digital Image Enhancement - Enhancement of an image includes adjusting its brightness and then adjusting the contrast of the brightness adjusted image. Adjusting the brightness uses an estimation of real world luminance. Contrast adjustment involves extracting background and contrast information, adjusting the contrast information by an adjustment factor based on the background information and combining the background corrected contrast information to obtain an output image. | 02-25-2010 |
20100054623 | IMAGE DISPLAY APPARATUS AND METHOD - A display luminance of an image signal is extracted from an image inputted. An observation distance is calculated as a relative distance between an observer and the display. A brightness of an environmental condition of the display is calculated. A visual angle of the image is calculated using the observation distance and a size of the display. A visual response function is calculated using the display luminance, the brightness of the environmental condition, and the visual angle. The visual response function represents relationship between the display luminance and a referential lightness of a human visual characteristic. A corrected display luminance corresponding to a referential lightness is calculated using the visual response function. The image is output on the display using the corrected display luminance. | 03-04-2010 |
20100061653 | IMAGE BRIGHTNESS ADJUSTING METHOD - An image brightness adjusting method is provided. The brightness values of all pixels of the image are firstly increased in various increasing degrees. Next, the increased brightness values are decreased in various decreasing degrees according to the original brightness values, thereby avoiding over-increasing the brightness values of the image. Moreover, the use of the color saturation values to adjust the brightness values can avoid the unnatural image appearance. | 03-11-2010 |
20100067823 | Dehazing an Image Using a Three-Dimensional Reference Model - An image may be dehazed using a three-dimensional reference model. In an example embodiment, a device-implemented method for dehazing includes acts of registering, estimating, and producing. An image that includes haze is registered to a reference model. A haze curve is estimated for the image based on a relationship between colors in the image and colors and depths of the reference model. A dehazed image is produced by using the estimated haze curve to reduce the haze of the image. | 03-18-2010 |
20100067824 | IMAGE DECOMPOSTION - A computer-implemented method includes segmenting an input image into a plurality of image cues, each image cue representing a unique set of pixels of the input image. For each image cue, the method includes determining a set of image components, wherein each image component is associated with at least one adjustable factor to represent at least one characteristic of the image cue. | 03-18-2010 |
20100067825 | Digital Image Filters and Related Methods for Image Contrast Enhancement - Digital image filters and related methods for image contrast enhancement are disclosed. According to one aspect of the method, an invariant brightness level is initially determined. For each pixel of an input image, the invariant brightness level is subtracted from the input brightness of the pixel. The resulting value is multiplied with a contrast adjustment constant. After that, the invariant brightness level is added. Further aspects of the method can involve histogram equalization. | 03-18-2010 |
20100074553 | METHOD AND APPARATUS OF LOCAL CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT - Methods and apparatuses of contrast enhancement on an image are disclosed. The method performs local shading of fine contrast variations in an image, with particular advantage in tone mapping applications. The amounts of shading are determined by the preferred degree of increased image contrast | 03-25-2010 |
20100129004 | Image processing apparatus, image processing method, and program - An image processing apparatus, which quantizes M-level image data into N levels (M>N>2) using a multi-level error diffusion method or a multi-level average-error minimization method, includes a γ-conversion unit that performs γ-conversion on an integer part in a real number value after ideal gradation conversion that aims to obtain desired density or brightness, an area-gradation expressing unit that expresses a decimal part in the real number value by area gradation, an integerization unit that adds two values obtained through the γ-conversion and the area gradation to obtain an integerized value corresponding to the ideal gradation conversion, a correction unit that adds a peripheral error to the integerized value, and a threshold setting unit that sets an N−1-type threshold value for a value corresponding to the ideal gradation conversion, wherein the conversion to N levels is performed by using the correction value and the N−1-type threshold value. | 05-27-2010 |
20100142846 | Solver for image segregation - In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an automated, computerized method is provided for processing an image. According to a feature of the present invention, the method comprises the steps of providing an image, identifying a constraint defined by spatio-spectral aspects of the image, providing an optimization function augmented by an L | 06-10-2010 |
20100142847 | Apparatus and method for enhancing image base on luminance information of pixel - An image enhancement apparatus and method based on luminance information of a pixel. The image enhancement apparatus may determine luminance data of each of a plurality of pixels, and may adaptively determine a conversion ratio according to the luminance data to apply the conversion ratio to an input image, thereby performing image-enhancing. The image enhancement apparatus may adaptively converse the input image according to luminance data, thereby precisely and effectively performing image-enhancing. | 06-10-2010 |
20100142848 | Image Based Correction For Unwanted Light Signals In A Specific Region Of Interest - A method for correcting the signal in an image having a plurality of regions of interest, the method comprising the steps of:
| 06-10-2010 |
20100150471 | HIERARCHICAL SUDDEN ILLUMINATION CHANGE DETECTION USING RADIANCE CONSISTENCY WITHIN A SPATIAL NEIGHBORHOOD - Techniques are disclosed for detecting sudden illumination changes using radiance consistency within a spatial neighborhood. A background/foreground (BG/FG) component of a behavior recognition system may be configured to generate a background image depicting a scene background. Further, the (BG/FG) component may periodically evaluate a current video frame to determine whether a sudden illumination change has occurred. A sudden illumination change occurs when scene lighting changes dramatically from one frame to the next (or over a small number of frames). | 06-17-2010 |
20100166336 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE - An image processing device may create corrected image data by correcting object image data utilizing base image data. The image processing device may determine a first representative value which represents first pixels having a higher brightness value among entire pixels of the object image data determine a second representative value which represents second pixels having a higher brightness value among entire pixels of the base image data, and create the corrected image data by correcting a value of each pixel of the object image data such that the first representative value approaches the second representative value. | 07-01-2010 |
20100189375 | Method and System for Changing Image Density and Contrast - At least one of two enhancement methods for changing contrast and/or density are applied to an image. According to a first enhancement method the window width/level settings of the image are modified and according to a second enhancement method density and contrast of the image are modified by modifying a multi-scale representation of the image whereby modification is derived from at least two gradient functions determined at different scales, a gradient function at a specific scale specifying the dependency of contrast amplification at said scale as a function of density. The amount of modification obtained by applying either of said first and second enhancement methods is determined by the amount of movement of at least one indicium. | 07-29-2010 |
20100189376 | DETECTION VALUES CORRECTION APPARATUS - The present invention relates to a detection values correction apparatus for correcting detection values of a projection image of a multi-energy imaging system. A scatter contribution providing unit provides scatter contributions for different intensities, different energies and different locations on the detection surface of the detection values. A scatter contributions combining unit combines scatter contributions for correcting a detection value, wherein the combined scatter contributions represent the contribution of the scatter, which is caused by radiation of the other detection values of the projection image, to the detection value to be corrected and wherein the scatter contributions are combined under consideration of the intensity, energy and location on the detection surface of the other detection values. A correction unit scatter corrects the detection value of the projection image by using the combined scatter contributions. | 07-29-2010 |
20100195929 | DEVELOPMENT SERVER, DEVELOPMENT CLIENT, DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM, AND DEVELOPMENT METHOD - A development server for more easily creating an image having a quality of image matching the desire and preference of the user from image data such as RAW data from which the user cannot develop. A development server ( | 08-05-2010 |
20100215286 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - According to one embodiment, an image processing apparatus includes a detector configured to detect a difference value between frames included in image data, a sharpening parameter setting module configured to set a sharpening parameter for controlling a sharpening effect gain for the image data in accordance with the detected difference value, and a sharpening processor configured to perform a sharpening process to the image data based on the sharpening parameter. | 08-26-2010 |
20100232725 | TEMPERATURE ARTIFACT CORRECTION - A system and method of generating a template of at least one artifact for use in image correction is disclosed. An image containing the artifact is generated using at least two homogeneous exposures, each generated at a different detector operating temperature. The local variance of grey values at each pixel position in the image is calculated. Each pixel in the image is then classified. A binary image is generated based on the classification. The template is then formed based on both the binary image and the image data containing the artifact. | 09-16-2010 |
20100232726 | METHOD FOR SIMULATING DARK-PART EXPOSURE COMPENSATION OF HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGES USING A SINGLE IMAGE AND IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE FOR USE WITH THE METHOD - A method for simulating dark-part exposure compensation of high dynamic range images using a single image includes steps of: performing bright-part-enhancing image processing and saturation-contrast-enhancing image processing to obtain images P | 09-16-2010 |
20100254623 | IMAGE CORRECTION APPARATUS AND IMAGE CORRECTION METHOD - An image correction apparatus calculates a feature value indicative of an average brightness of an input image from the pixel values of the input image and determines a pixel value at a boundary for correcting each pixel of the input image to make it brighter or darker by using the calculated feature value of the input image. The image correction apparatus calculates, with respect to the pixel value of each pixel of the input image, an area for determining a contrast correction amount for a pixel value smaller than the pixel value at the determined boundary such that a pixel is to be made darker and calculates an area for determining a contrast correction amount for a pixel value larger than the pixel value at the determined boundary such that a pixel is to be made brighter, thereby correcting the contrast of the input image by using the calculated areas. | 10-07-2010 |
20100278448 | Method for image modification - In a first exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an automated, computerized method is provided for processing an image. According to a feature of the present invention, the method comprises the steps of providing an image file depicting an image, in a computer memory, performing an image segregation operation on the image file to generate a set of intrinsic images corresponding to the image, modifying a preselected one of the set of intrinsic images according to a set of preselected operations and merging the modified one of the set of intrinsic images relative to the set of intrinsic images to provide a modified output image. | 11-04-2010 |
20100296751 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND STORAGE MEDIUM - An image processing apparatus comprising: a calculation unit configured to calculate, based on a pixel value of a pixel of interest and a pixel value of a pixel around the pixel of interest, a spatial frequency around the pixel of interest and a statistic value of pixel values around the pixel of interest; a storage unit configured to store correction parameters corresponding to sets of spatial frequencies and statistic values; an acquisition unit configured to acquire, from the storage unit, a correction parameter corresponding to the spatial frequency around the pixel of interest and the statistic value of the pixel values around the pixel of interest, as a correction parameter for the pixel of interest; and a correction unit configured to correct the pixel value of the pixel of interest using the correction parameter for the pixel of interest. | 11-25-2010 |
20100303379 | DISTORTION OF DIGITAL IMAGES USING SPATIAL OFFSETS FROM IMAGE REFERENCE POINTS - A method for distorting a digital image comprising receiving the coordinates of one or more than one image reference point defined by a user within the digital image, receiving one or more than one spatial offset assigned by the user and associated with the coordinates of the one or more than one defined image reference point, providing a mixing function algorithm embodied on a computer-readable medium for distorting the digital image, calculating an offset matrix by applying the mixing function algorithm based on the one or more than one spatial offset and the coordinates of the one or more than one defined image reference point; and distorting the digital image by application of the offset matrix. A graphic tag may be associated with each of the defined image reference points and displayed over the digital image, and the assignment of the spatial offset may be accomplished by movement of the graphic tag with the pointing device. Abstract image reference points may be used to limit distortion. | 12-02-2010 |
20100322532 | LENS ROLL-OFF CORRECTION OPERATION USING VALUES CORRECTED BASED ON BRIGHTNESS INFORMATION - A method is disclosed that includes receiving image data and calculating brightness information of the image data. The method includes correcting at least one lens roll-off value to be used in a lens roll-off correction operation based on the brightness information. The method also includes performing the lens roll-off correction operation on the image data using the at least one corrected lens roll-off value. | 12-23-2010 |
20110026851 | METHOD FOR RECONSTRUCTING A FLUORESCENT IMAGE OF THE INTERIOR OF A TURBID MEDIUM AND DEVICE FOR IMAGING THE INTERIOR OF A TURBID MEDIUM - A method for reconstructing a fluorescence image of the interior of a turbid medium is provided. The method comprises the step: accommodating a turbid medium ( | 02-03-2011 |
20110075944 | SAMPLE BASED TONE MAPPING METHOD FOR HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGES - The disclosure relates to adjusting intensities of images. The method includes receiving information identifying of a plurality of regions within an image; receiving an intensity adjustment of at least one of the plurality of regions; adjusting the intensities of the at least one plurality of regions based on the received intensity adjustment; interconnecting at least two of the plurality of regions by applying a two-dimensional method; generating intensity adjustments for at least one pixel outside the plurality of regions based on the received intensity adjustment of at least one of the plurality of regions and the interconnection of at least two of the plurality of regions; and applying the generated intensity adjustments to the image. | 03-31-2011 |
20110081097 | IMAGE PRODUCTION DEVICE, REPRODUCTION DEVICE, REPRODUCTION SYSTEM, IMAGE PRODUCTION METHOD, AND REPRODUCTION METHOD - An image production device includes a flash determination section, a frame information adder and an addition controller. The flash determination section is configured to determine whether or not image data included in an image data group are affected by flash. The frame information adder is configured to add frame information used for identifying the image data affected by flash to the image data. The addition controller is configured to control the frame information adder to add the frame information to the image data affected by flash, on the basis of the determination result of the flash determination section. | 04-07-2011 |
20110091127 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR EFFICIENT VIDEO PROCESSING - Embodiments of the present invention are directed to efficient video processing methods and systems for computationally efficient denoising, sharpening, contrast enhancement, deblurring, and other spatial and temporal processing of a stream of video frames. Embodiments of the present invention separate statistics-related calculations, including estimation of pixel-value-associated variances, standard deviations, noise thresholds, and signal-contrast thresholds, carried out on only a small percentage of video frames selected at a fixed or variable interval from the video stream, from various spatial and temporal processing steps carried out on each frame of the video stream. In certain embodiments of the present invention, the statistics-related calculations are carried out by the general processor or processors of a computer system, while the frame-by-frame spatial and temporal processing is carried out by one or more specialized graphics processors within the computer system. | 04-21-2011 |
20110097012 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING THE SAME - An image processing apparatus comprises an input unit configured to input image data including m frame images per unit time; a filtering unit configured to generate a high-frequency component emphasized frame image and a low-frequency component frame image from each frame image; a correction unit configured to correct a luminance of the low-frequency component frame image corresponding to each frame image at a predetermined ratio so as to make the image data perceptible in the same brightness as that of each of the frame images output as the m frames per unit time; and an output unit configured to alternately output the high-frequency component emphasized frame image generated by the filtering unit and the low-frequency component frame image whose luminance has been corrected by the correction unit as image data including 2 m frame images per unit time. | 04-28-2011 |
20110123133 | GAUSSIAN MIXTURE MODEL BASED ILLUMINATION NORMALIZATION FOR GLOBAL ENHANCEMENT - A method is presented for enhancing an image from an initial image, comprising computing a first luminance level frequency distribution corresponding to plurality of pixel constructing said initial image, representing said first luminance level frequency distribution as a resultant of Gaussian model mixtures to assess relative utilization of overall luminance level across said initial image, computing a desired luminance level frequency distribution as a function of the relative utilization, computing a transfer function to adjust the first luminance level frequency distribution to an enhanced luminance level as a function of desired level frequency distribution estimation, and applying said transfer function globally to said initial image to provide an enhanced image is. The first luminance level can be adapted to be linearized in a logarithmic form. In one embodiment, the model comprises one or more Gaussian functions. The initial image can be a background image estimated from a sequence of images. | 05-26-2011 |
20110123134 | IMAGE CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT - A contrast enhancement method for an image includes extracting at least one sub-band image from the image, comprising detail information at a predetermined spatial scale; determining a first gain value for each pixel, based on pixel values of the image or the at least one sub-band image; determining a second gain value for each pixel; modifying the first gain value for each pixel using the respective second gain value; and generating an enhanced image by applying the modified first gain values to respective pixels of one or more sub-band images and combining the result with the image. Determining the first gain value for each pixel comprises: estimating a dynamic range of the pixel values in a neighbourhood of that pixel; and setting the first gain value in inverse relation to the dynamic range. Determining the second gain value for each pixel comprises: estimating a probability distribution of the pixel values in the neighbourhood; and determining the second gain value based on the amplitude of the peak of the probability distribution. | 05-26-2011 |
20110142365 | INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD, PROGRAM, AND IMAGING APPARATUS INCLUDING OPTICAL MICROSCOPE - An information processing apparatus includes an acquisition section and a correction section. The acquisition section acquires information of lightness distribution of a first image captured by an imaging section capable of capturing an image of an observed area provided on an optical path of an optical system of an optical microscope, the image of the observed area being obtained by the optical microscope, the first image being an image of the observed area in a state where no sample is placed therein, the lightness distribution resulting from the optical system of the optical microscope. The correction section corrects, based on the information of lightness distribution acquired by the acquisition section, lightness unevenness of a second image captured by the imaging section, the second image being an image of the observed area in a state where the sample is placed therein. | 06-16-2011 |
20110142366 | System and Method for Super-Resolution Imaging from a Sequence of Color Filter Array (CFA) Low-Resolution Images - A method and system for improving picture quality of color images by combing the content of a plurality of frames of the same subject; comprising: at least one processor; the at least one processor comprising a memory for storing a plurality of frames of a subject; the at least one processor operating to combine the content of plurality of frames of the subject into a combined color image by performing: a process in which at least two multicolored frames are converted to monochromatic predetermined color frames; a gross shift process in which the gross shift translation of one monochromatic predetermined color frame is determined relative to a reference monochromatic predetermined color frame; a subpixel shift process utilizing a correlation method to determine the translational and/or rotational differences of one monochromatic predetermined color frame to the reference monochromatic predetermined color frame to estimate sub-pixel shifts and/or rotations between the frames; and an error reduction process to determine whether the resolution of the resulting combined color image is of sufficient resolution; the error reduction process comprising applying at least one spatial frequency domain constraint and at least one spatial domain constraint to the combined color image to produce at least one high-resolution full color image. | 06-16-2011 |
20110150357 | METHOD FOR CREATING HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGE - A method for improving the dynamic range of a captured digital image, the method includes the steps of acquiring at a first and second image each at different effective exposures; computing from the first and second images a linear exposure shift; applying the exposure shift to the first image to match relative effective exposure of the second image; and computing a single high dynamic range image from the first and second images. | 06-23-2011 |
20110150358 | Method and system for factoring an illumination image - In a first exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an automated, computerized method is provided for processing an image. According to a feature of the present invention, the method comprises the steps of providing an image file depicting an image, in a computer memory, generating an illumination image from the image; and factoring the illumination image to generate a diffuse illumination image and a harsh shadow illumination image. | 06-23-2011 |
20110150359 | CURRENT LIMITATION METHOD OF DISPLAY DEVICE - A current limitation method of a display device includes: calculating a brightness average in each frame of an inputted image; calculating a brightness difference between successive frames of the image by using the calculated brightness average, and calculating a cumulative average brightness value by cumulating the brightness average with respect to the frames included in a frame length which is varied depending on the brightness difference; converting the cumulative average brightness value into a preset brightness adjustment value; and adjusting the brightness of the inputted image according to the brightness adjustment value. | 06-23-2011 |
20110150360 | ADJUSTMENT FOR OUTPUT IMAGE OF IMAGE DATA - If a memory card is inserted in a slot, a control circuit of a color printer acquires image output control information from the memory card and analyzes this information. A CPU modifies a brightness standard value Bstd corresponding to a brightness parameter by taking account of a preset exposure bias value when an exposure bias value other than zero is set. The CPU determines the brightness correction level Brev by correcting the brightness representative value Brep so as to bring it closer to the brightness standard value Bstd that has been modified, and adjusts the image quality of image data by taking account of the brightness correction level Brev. As a result, the image quality of image data can be automatically adjusted without degrading output conditions that have been set arbitrarily. | 06-23-2011 |
20110164828 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - In an image processing performing local tone correction on an image, tone correction on an object (face) area can be suppressed from becoming nonuniform. The apparatus is provided with an acquisition unit ( | 07-07-2011 |
20110176745 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REDUCING ARTIFACT DUE TO TIME DELAY IN DATA ACQUISTION SYSTEM IN COMPUTER TOMOGRAPHY - The CT imaging system optimizes its image generation by substantially reducing artifacts caused by a known amount of readout time lag in the X-ray detectors or data acquisition system. Although each detector row takes the same amount of time to read out the signals, the time lag cumulates over the rows as each row is sequentially read out. The back-projection coordinates are correspondingly corrected based upon the above described delay. | 07-21-2011 |
20110182528 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR GENERATING IMAGES HAVING A REDUCED ERROR RATE, HIGH RESOLUTION AND IMPROVED CONTRAST - The invention relates to a method for generating images having a reduced error rate, high resolution and improved contrast from resolutions, which can be obtained from an image sensor having adjustable recording parameters. According to the invention, the image sequences of the images (K, R) having low resolutions are subjected to a combination of super-resolution processing (SR) and high dynamic range reconstruction processing (HDR) in order to obtain images having a reduced error rate, high resolution and improved contrast on the basis of redundant and complementary image information contained in the images having low resolution. | 07-28-2011 |
20110182529 | METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR STRUCTURED ILLUMINATION MICROSCOPY - In structured illumination microscopy, the multiple recording of images with different phase positions of the structuring requires a high stability in the optical arrangement and sample throughout the entire measuring process. Also, the structuring must be projected into the sample in a highly homogeneous manner. The current invention optimizes recording of individual images in order to achieve the best possible resolution in the result image even in problematic samples. An optimization of this kind can be carried out in different ways, for example, by determining an optimal adjustment for at least one illumination parameter or recording parameter or by pulsed illumination such that an excitation from a triplet state of the fluorescent dye to a higher triplet state is reduced, or by illuminating the sample with depletion light for depopulating a triplet state of the fluorescent dye, which reduces bleaching. | 07-28-2011 |
20110188775 | Single Image Haze Removal Using Dark Channel Priors - Techniques and technologies for de-hazing hazy images are described. Some techniques provide for determining the effects of the haze and removing the same from an image to recover a de-hazed image. Thus, the de-hazed image does not contain the effects of the haze. Some disclosed technologies allow for similar results. This document also discloses systems and methods for de-hazing images. Some of the disclosed de-hazing systems include an image capture device for capturing the hazy image and a processor for removing the effects of the haze from the hazy image. These systems store the recovered, de-hazed images in a memory and/or display the de-hazed images on a display. Some of the disclosed methods include removing the effects of the haze from a hazy image and outputting the recovered, de-hazed image. | 08-04-2011 |
20110188776 | IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD AND IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS - In image processing according to the prior art, the important part of photographic image data (referred to herein as the object) could not be determined and therefore required human participation. | 08-04-2011 |
20110206293 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIUM STORING PROGRAM THEREOF - An image processing apparatus includes a band decomposition unit, an intensity calculation unit, and a band-weighted image generation unit. The band decomposition unit decomposes a given original image into frequency component images each corresponding to an individual frequency band. The intensity calculation unit sets each pixel as a target pixel for processing, and calculates an intensity of a frequency component in each frequency band for a local area having a predetermined size including the target pixel for processing. The band-weighted image generation unit generates a band-weighted image by determining a frequency band to which the target pixel for processing belongs in accordance with intensities of frequency components in the local area and by assigning a weighted value for the frequency band to each pixel in the local area. | 08-25-2011 |
20110211768 | Method for Improving the Contrast of Images, Particularly Gray Tone Images, and Device for Carrying out Said Method - A characteristic line is used for converting an initial image into a modified image that is composed of two characteristic lines that have different contrast enhancement properties. | 09-01-2011 |
20110243473 | IMAGE ENHANCEMENT METHOD AND APPARATUSES UTILIZING THE SAME - An image enhancement apparatus is provided. The image enhancement apparatus includes a global tone mapping curve generator, a local tone mapping curve generator, a reference gamma voltage generator and an image generator. The global tone mapping curve generator generates a global tone mapping curve for an input image according to global characteristic(s) of the input image. The local tone mapping curve generator generates a local tone mapping curve for each image partition within the input image according to the global tone mapping curve and further a feature of the image partition. The reference gamma voltage generator generates a plurality of reference gamma voltages for each image partition according to the corresponding local tone mapping curve for the image partition. The image generator generates an output image according to the reference gamma voltages of the image partitions and the input image. | 10-06-2011 |
20110280494 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING ENHANCED IMAGES - A method and apparatus for generating an enhanced image is provided. The method includes receiving ( | 11-17-2011 |
20110286682 | ESTIMATING BLUR DEGRADATION OF AN IMAGE USING SPECULAR HIGHLIGHTS - A method and apparatus ( | 11-24-2011 |
20110311157 | METHOD FOR GENERATING SKETCH IMAGE AND DISPLAY APPARATUS APPLYING THE SAME - A sketch image is generated based on a brightness of a pixel block that includes a pixel and at least one pixel surrounding the pixel. An output gray scale of the specific pixel is adjusted based on whether an input gray scale of the specific pixel is higher than the representative value. Accordingly, the display apparatus may generate a clear sketch image. | 12-22-2011 |
20110317935 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE, METHOD THEREOF, AND A COMPUTER READABLE NON TRANSITORY STORAGE MEDIUM STORING AN IMAGE PROCESSING PROGRAM - An image processing device includes, a block division unit configured to divide at least a part of an area of an input image into a plurality of blocks; a block classification unit configured to classify each block in the input image into a white block and a black block based on a variance of luminance values in a white block that typically includes white pixels and a variance of luminance values in a black block that includes at least black pixels among white pixels and black pixels; and a luminance correction unit configured to correct a luminance value of each pixel in a black block in the input image based on an average luminance value of pixels in one or more white blocks in the vicinity of the black block. | 12-29-2011 |
20110317936 | Image Processing Method and Computer Program - To obtain an output image where contrast relating to the luminance of an input image has been adjusted. In an image processing method for adjusting the luminance value of each pixel contained in an input image, first, a closed region β(x, y) made up of a plurality of pixels in the input image is demarcated as a target region, and the target region is moved within the input image by predetermined pixel units. At this point, a maximum value and a minimum value of luminance energy defined as a luminance arrangement in the target region are calculated, and difference data of the luminance energy is calculated (step S | 12-29-2011 |
20120020584 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - An image processing apparatus including: a determining processing section which binarizes a pixel value of a target pixel using a threshold; a calculation section which calculates feedback values by multiplying binarized pixel values of adjacent processed pixels by a feedback coefficient; a addition section which adds the feedback values to the pixel value of the target pixel before binarization; a diffusion section which diffuses a difference between the binarized pixel value and the unadded pixel value as an error to adjacent unprocessed pixels; and a subtraction section which subtracts the error from the unadded pixel value of the target pixel, wherein when all pixel values of processed pixels are 0 and an output value of the target pixel is a maximum value, it is determined that the target pixel is an isolated point and an output value of an adjacent pixel is set to a forced output value excluding 0. | 01-26-2012 |
20120045146 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ELIMINATING ARTIFACTS IN ACTIVE PIXEL SENSOR (APS) IMAGERS - An active pixel sensor (APS) that includes circuitry to eliminate artifacts in digital images. The APS includes a comparator for comparing a signal level from a pixel to an adjusted saturation voltage to determine if the pixel is saturated. If the pixel is saturated, the signal output from the pixel is replaced with an analog voltage having a maximum value corresponding to a brightest pixel in the image. | 02-23-2012 |
20120057803 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, METHOD OF THE SAME, AND PROGRAM - Provided is an image processing apparatus including: a frequency value calculation section that allocates each pixel of an input image to any of respective partial regions obtained by dividing the entirety of a possible range of a luminance value into units in a luminance direction on the basis of the luminance value thereof, and allocates one pixel of the input image to partial regions when calculating frequency values representing the number of pixels allocated to the partial regions with respect to the respective partial regions, to update the frequency values of the partial regions; a characteristic value calculation section that calculates a characteristic value representing a characteristic of the partial region; and a weighted product-sum section that performs edge-preserving smoothing on the input image by weighting and averaging the characteristic values in accordance with a distance in the luminance direction, using the calculated frequency value and the calculated characteristic value. | 03-08-2012 |
20120057804 | QUALITY ADJUSTING APPARATUS AND IMAGE QUALITY ADJUSTING METHOD - An image quality adjusting apparatus includes: an output module configured to alternately output, in time division, first and second frame-rate-converted frame images that are obtained by converting first and second input frame images to increase a frame rate, respectively; a detecting module configured to detect features of each of the first and second input frame images; and an image quality adjusting module configured to perform an image quality adjustment on the first frame-rate-converted frame image based on the detected features of the first input frame image and performing an image quality adjustment on the second frame-rate-converted frame image based on the detected features of the second input frame image. | 03-08-2012 |
20120076433 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE - According to one embodiment, an image processing device includes an obtaining unit, a separating unit, a processing unit and a combining unit. The obtaining unit obtains a depth value of a subject imaged on an input image. The separating unit separates the input image into a first component that is a component including a gradation and a second component that is a component other than the first component. The processing unit enhances the first component in accordance with the depth value to generate a processed component. The combining unit combines the processed component and the second component to generate a combined component. | 03-29-2012 |
20120076434 | FLUOROSCOPY APPARATUS, FLUOROSCOPY SYSTEM, AND FLUORESCENCE-IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - Observation is performed with a fluorescence image having high quantitativeness by satisfactorily eliminating dependency on distance. Provided is a fluoroscopy apparatus including an illumination unit having a light source that radiates illumination light and excitation light onto an observation target site, a fluorescence-imaging unit that acquires a fluorescence image by imaging fluorescence generated at the observation target site by the radiation of excitation light, a white-light-imaging unit that acquires a reference image by imaging return light returning from the observation target site by the radiation of the illumination light, and an image-correction unit that obtains a correction fluorescence image by raising the luminance value of the fluorescence image to the power of a reciprocal of a first exponent obtained by a power approximation of a distance characteristic of luminance versus observation distance, for the fluorescence image, that obtains the correction reference image by raising the luminance value of the reference image to the power of a reciprocal of a second exponent obtained by a power approximation of a distance characteristic of luminance versus observation distance, for the reference image, and that obtains a corrected fluorescence image by dividing the correction fluorescence image by the correction reference image. | 03-29-2012 |
20120082397 | CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT - A method according to the invention enhances contrast of an image by accessing an original image, and establishing, assigning, or initializing pixel values and pixel coordinates of pixels of the image. Then, a Laplacian pyramid having an integral number of levels is generated for the image. A contrast boost pyramid is generated and applied to the Laplacian pyramid to obtain a modified Laplacian pyramid wherein values in the levels of the Laplacian pyramid are enhanced. An enhanced image is then constructed from the modified Laplacian pyramid. | 04-05-2012 |
20120093435 | METHOD OF PRODUCING AN IMAGE - A method of producing an image is disclosed. At least one symbol is received. A first image with at least one light spot is, optionally, captured by an image capturing apparatus. The performing order of receiving the symbol and capturing the first image may be reversed. The first image is duplicated to provide a plurality of duplicated first images, and the duplicated first images are shifted according to the symbol to obtain a plurality of shifted first images. The brightness values of corresponding pixels of the shifted first images are computed to produce a second image with a light track that traces the symbol. | 04-19-2012 |
20120106866 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR CORRECTING IMAGE, AND METHOD AND DEVICE FOR GENERATING CORRECTION TABLE FOR USE IN CORRECTION OF IMAGE - An image correction device geometrically corrects an input image, based on the correction table, which is generated by obtaining a light-direction vector in an objective space corresponding to each pixel position on a corrected image, based on a first projection center located on the rear side of a second projection center as the projection center of the input image in the objective space with respect to the direction of an optical axis corresponding to the input image, obtaining from the light-direction vector an origin-based light-direction vector indicating a direction from the second projection center in which a point corresponding to each pixel position exists in the objective space, exacting a position on the input image corresponding to the origin-based light-direction vector, and recording in the correction table the resampling position in correspondence with each pixel position in the corrected image. | 05-03-2012 |
20120106867 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - An image processing apparatus capable of performing good luminance correction without performing a cumbersome process is provided. The image processing apparatus includes an illumination light component estimation unit which calculates an estimated illumination light component of an original image, an estimated illumination light component correction unit which outputs a corrected estimated illumination light component obtained by correcting the estimated illumination light component, and a Retinex processing unit which corrects a luminance component of the original image by dividing the luminance component by the corrected estimated illumination light component. | 05-03-2012 |
20120114265 | Image Contrast Enhancement - Systems and methods for image contrast enhancement are disclosed. A tone reproduction curve function is generated for a plurality of pixel values, each including a brightness value, based on a contrast adjustment value, the brightness value of each of the pixels and a power-law function, the tone reproduction curve taking the form of an S-shaped curve. The S-shaped curve includes a bulging curve portion corresponding to an area wherein a brightness of pixels having values representative of relative brightness is increased, a sagging curve portion corresponding to an area wherein a brightness of pixels having values representative of relative darkness is decreased, and an inflection point serving as a demarcation between the bulging area and the sagging area of the tone reproduction curve. The exponent of the power-law function is generated as a quadratic polynomial function f(x) in a range 0≦f(x)≦1, wherein x is defined as a curvature factor. The tone reproduction curve is then applied to the image data to generate contrast enhanced image data. The enhanced image data is then output to an associated image rendering device. | 05-10-2012 |
20120114266 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - An image processing apparatus and an image processing method are provided. A storage unit of the image processing apparatus stores an image and a piece of intensity statistical information of the image. The piece of intensity statistical information records that the image has a first number of pixels having a first intensity value, a second number of pixels having a second intensity value, and a third number of pixels having a third intensity value. A micro-processing unit of the image processing unit calculates a centralization degree of the second intensity value in the image according to the first number, the second number, and the third number. If the centralization degree is greater than a threshold, the micro-processing unit adjusts the intensity value of a pixel having the second intensity value in the image according to the second intensity value and the intensity value of the at least one neighboring pixel of the pixel. | 05-10-2012 |
20120114267 | METHOD OF ENHANCING CONTRAST USING BEZIER CURVE - Disclosed is a method of enhancing contrast of an image by using a Bezier curve. Histogram distribution is calculated based on an image that has been photographed or read out from a storage medium, the type of the image is determined according to the contrast state of the image, the movement directions of control points of a 3-D Bezier curve is determined according to the type of the image, and the movement distances of the control points of the 3-D Bezier curve are calculated based on the number of luminance values of the histogram distribution. Two control points of the 3-D Bezier curve are moved based on the movement directions and the movement distances of the control points, and the 3-D Bezier curve is created by using the two moved control points and two fixed control points. The contrast of the image is enhanced by applying the Bezier curve. | 05-10-2012 |
20120128264 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS OF OPTICAL IMAGING FOR TARGET DETECTION IN A SCATTERING MEDIUM - A method for enhancing contrast in fluorescence imaging is provided. The method comprises providing a patterned illumination source for illuminating one or more regions corresponding to a scan step, scanning at least a portion of a surface of a subject using a plurality of scan steps, acquiring image frames corresponding to two or more scan steps, deducting a background fluorescence from the image frames corresponding to the two or more scan steps to form one or more processed image frames, and reconstructing an image using one or more of the processed image frames. | 05-24-2012 |
20120141044 | Removing Illumination Variation from Images - An image comprising varying illumination is selected. Patches of pixels from among the plurality of pixels with the image are identified. Similarities between pairs of patches of pixels based on pixel intensities associated with the pairs of patches of pixels are calculated. Illumination values for the plurality of pixels within the image based on the calculated similarities between the pairs of patches of pixels is calculated. The illumination variation from the image is removed based on the calculated illumination values for the plurality of pixels within the image. | 06-07-2012 |
20120177302 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD AND STORAGE MEDIUM - An image processing device that sequentially generates a synthetic image by joining a first image, which is a single image or constituted by a plurality of the images joined together, and a second image that is input, every time when the second image is input, includes: an overlapping region obtainment portion | 07-12-2012 |
20120224787 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR IMAGE CAPTURING - Systems and methods for generating an image determine scene information based on a first image of a scene, the first image including an image of a subject at a first position in the scene, and the first image information including a first field of view of the first image and a first capture location where the first image was captured, acquire a second image of the scene from a repository storing a plurality of images based on the scene information, the second image having a second field of view similar to the first field of view and a second capture location similar to the first capture location, adjust light parameters of the image of the subject based on the light parameters of the second image, and generate a combined image based on the second image and the image of the subject, the combined image including at least part of the second image, and the adjusted image of the subject at a position in the scene similar to the first position in the scene. | 09-06-2012 |
20120224788 | Merging Multiple Exposed Images in Transform Domain - Techniques are provided to generate high or wide dynamic range image from two or more input images of different exposure settings by directly merging coefficients derived from the input images in a transform domain. Energy values may be determined from coefficients blocks derived from the input images. The energy values may be compared with thresholds to determine weight factors for the coefficient blocks. An output coefficient block in the transform domain, used in or used to generate the output image, may be determined as a weighted combination of the coefficient blocks in the transform domain derived from the input images. If input images are compressed in transform domain, an output image can be generated without performing decompression in transform domain. | 09-06-2012 |
20120301050 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD - There is provided an image processing apparatus including a control unit configured to control whether or not to set an amplification factor for amplifying a reflectance component of an image to a large enough value to give a painterly visual effect to the image, a separation unit configured to separate the image into an illumination component and the reflectance component, an amplification unit configured to amplify the reflectance component separated by the separation unit with the amplification factor controlled by the control unit, and a combination unit configured to combine the illumination component separated by the separation unit and the reflectance component amplified by the amplification unit. | 11-29-2012 |
20120308154 | TONE MAPPING WITH ADAPTIVE SLOPE FOR IMAGE SHARPENING - A method for sharpening a captured image ( | 12-06-2012 |
20120308155 | IMAGE PROCESSOR, DISPLAY DEVICE, AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - An image processor ( | 12-06-2012 |
20120314971 | AUTOMATIC EXPOSURE CORRECTION OF IMAGES - Techniques for automatic exposure correction of images are provided. In particular, the exposure of an input image may be improved by automatically modifying a non-linear function that characterizes the luminance of shadow, mid-tone, and highlight portions of the image. The input image may be segmented into a number of regions and each region is assigned a zone, where the zone indicates a specified range of luminance values. An initial zone assigned to a region of the image may be changed in order to reflect an optimal zone of the region. Based, in part, on the optimal zones for each region of the image, luminance modification parameters may be calculated and applied to the non-linear function in order to produce a modified version of the input image that improves the appearance of overexposed and/or underexposed regions of the input image. | 12-13-2012 |
20120321215 | METHOD FOR TUNING IMAGE QUALITY AND SYSTEM USING THE SAME - A method for tuning image quality and a system using the same are provided. The method is adapted for tuning image quality parameters of at least one image processing device, and includes following steps. After firmware of the image processing apparatuses are compiled and burned into the image processing devices, at least an image processing function along with their respective image processing parameters are configured to each of the image processing devices. An image processing process including at least one image tuning procedure is executed. In addition, when executing each one of the image tuning procedures, it is to select to upload a predetermined image to a first predetermined image processing procedure location of the currently executed image tuning procedure, or select to download another image from a second predetermined image processing procedure location of the currently executed image tuning procedure. | 12-20-2012 |
20130022289 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND STORAGE MEDIUM CAPABLE OF DETERMINING A REGION CORRESPONDING TO LOCAL LIGHT FROM AN IMAGE - An image processing apparatus includes an input unit configured to input image data to be processed, an determination unit configured to determine a region corresponding to local light in the image data input by the input unit, and a specification unit configured to determine a characteristic of the image data input by the input unit, wherein the determination unit changes, according to the characteristic of the image data specified by the specification unit, an determination criterion of the region corresponding to the local light. | 01-24-2013 |
20130022290 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND STORAGE MEDIUM - An image processing apparatus includes an input unit configured to input image data, a detection unit configured to detect a region corresponding to local light in an image represented by the image data input by the input unit, and a processing unit configured to perform blur processing on the region corresponding to the local light and detected by the detection unit, wherein the processing unit varies, according to a position of the region corresponding to the local light and detected by the detection unit, an area on which to perform the blur processing. | 01-24-2013 |
20130028535 | Image Scanning Apparatus - An image scanning apparatus according to this disclosure, includes: a reference data acquiring unit configured to acquire reference data to be used for shading correction as integer data; a short-bit-length data generating unit configured to generate short-bit-length data from the reference data, a bit-length of the short-bit-length data being shorter than a bit-length of the reference data acquired by the reference data acquiring unit; and a memory that the short-bit-length data is stored in. The short-bit-length data generating unit is further configured to generate the short-bit-length data which has a value obtained by subtracting a value of offset data from a value of the reference data. The value of the offset data is a predetermined value lower than an estimated minimum value of the reference data acquired by the reference data acquiring unit. | 01-31-2013 |
20130058592 | Method and device for classifying a light object located ahead of a vehicle - A method for classifying a light object located ahead of a vehicle, the method including a determination of a brightness curve assigned to the light object via at least two images which depict the light object at different times and a combination of the brightness curve with a characteristic brightness curve, in order to classify the light object. | 03-07-2013 |
20130077888 | System and Method for Image Enhancement - A method and system for forming an improved image from a series of frames comprising inputting a pixel value array for each image frame; summing the pixel values in each frame to obtain the frame intensity for each frame; multiplying the pixels in pixel value array by the frame intensity; summing the frame intensity multiplied pixel value arrays together and dividing by the number of frames to obtain an average of the frame intensity multiplied pixel value arrays; then, using the inputted pixel value arrays, creating an array of average pixel values; multiplying the array of average pixel values by the average frame intensity for all of the inputted frames; and subtracting the array of average pixel values multiplied by average frame intensity from the average of the frame intensity multiplied pixel value arrays to provide an array of modified pixel values to form an improved image. | 03-28-2013 |
20130084024 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, PROGRAM, AND RECORDING MEDIUM - There is provided an image processing apparatus including a local-motion-compensation-processing unit which generates a local-motion-compensation image by detecting a local motion vector, which is a motion vector for each block forming an image, from a standard image and a reference image, and performing motion compensation on the reference image using the local motion vector, a global-motion-compensation-processing unit which generates a global-motion-compensation image by calculating a global motion vector, which is a motion vector for an entire image between the standard image and the reference image, using the local motion vector, and performing motion compensation on the reference image using the global motion vector, and a blend processing unit which generates a blend-motion-compensation image by combining a pixel value of a pixel in the local-motion-compensation image and a pixel value of a pixel in the global-motion-compensation image based on a noise intensity for a luminance value of an image. | 04-04-2013 |
20130084025 | Method for Brightness Correction of Defective Pixels of Digital Monochrome Image - A method for brightness correction of defective pixels of digital monochrome image consisting in calculation of defective pixel brightness values over its neighborhood, creation of a defective pixel map that is used to determine a defective cluster perimeter preferably quadruply-connected one and calculate brightness value of each defective pixel belonging to such a perimeter; performing such a procedure iteratively until brightness value of each defective pixel has been calculated; defective pixel brightness value is calculated as an average weighed value over neighboring pixel brightness values. The technical result of the claimed method consists in increased quality of obtained image by means of brightness correction of defective pixels of a digital monochrome image. | 04-04-2013 |
20130089270 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS - An image processing apparatus includes an acquirer. An acquirer acquires a plurality of images, respectively corresponding to a plurality of exposure amounts different from one another, and each of which represents a common scene. A calculator calculates a composite coefficient with reference to at least a part of luminance characteristics of the plurality of images acquired by the acquirer | 04-11-2013 |
20130089271 | DYNAMIC CONTRAST ENHANCED MR IMAGING WITH COMPRESSED SENSING RECONSTRUCTION - The present invention relates to a method of performing dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of an object ( | 04-11-2013 |
20130114912 | DETECTION AND/OR ENHANCEMENT OF CONTRAST DIFFERENCES IN DIGITAL IMAGE DATA - A method for obtaining and/or enhancing local contrast differences (LD) in digital image input data (in), wherein a local contrast measure (SAD | 05-09-2013 |
20130129250 | METHOD FOR DYNAMIC RANGE EDITING - A method of displaying a high dynamic range image, comprising receiving the high dynamic range image, calculating a first set of tone mapping parameters as a function of the high dynamic range image, sub-sampling the first set of tone mapping parameters at a first resolution to create a first sub-sampled parameter set, creating a first tone-mapped image by processing the high dynamic range image as a function of the first sub-sampled parameter set, and displaying the first tone-mapped image. A method of composting a plurality of versions of an image to create the high dynamic range image is also disclosed such that the compositing may be modified as a function of received user input. | 05-23-2013 |
20130136376 | IMAGE PROCESSING OF VIDEO USING NOISE ESTIMATE - A method of processing image date representing an image of a scene to generate an estimate of noise present in the image data. The method comprises evaluating a function for different values of the estimate, the function taking as input an estimate of the noise, and determining an estimate of the noise for which the function has an optimum value. | 05-30-2013 |
20130177257 | Image processing device, image processing method, image processing program and recording medium - Converting lightness of each pixel even for images having continuous lightness includes: setting a local area around a pixel for which lightness is converted, in the original image; setting an upper limit conversion function which continuously monotonically increases with respect to the lightness, and determines an output upper limit of lightness conversion; setting a lower limit conversion function which continuously monotonically increases with respect to the lightness, and determines an output lower limit of lightness conversion; calculating upper and lower limit values (upper and lower limit conversion function of lightness of the pixel to be converted); calculating a ratio for setting a value between the upper limit value and the lower limit value according to lightness of each pixel in the local area; and calculating converted lightness of a pixel for which the lightness is converted based on the upper limit value, the lower limit value and the ratio. | 07-11-2013 |
20130182970 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MOBILE IMAGE CAPTURE AND PROCESSING - In various embodiments, methods, systems, and computer program products for processing digital images captured by a mobile device are disclosed. Myriad features enable and/or facilitate processing of such digital images using a mobile device that would otherwise be technically impossible or impractical, and furthermore address unique challenges presented by images captured using a camera rather than a traditional flat-bed scanner, paper-feed scanner or multifunction peripheral. | 07-18-2013 |
20130216154 | Method of performing eye circle correction an image and related computing device - A method of correcting an eye circle on an image with at least one eye visible and the eye circle being located beneath the eye includes defining a core area of the image for correction, the core area being located substantially below a position of the eye in the image. The method also defines a processing area being larger in area than the core area and including the core area, and defines a surrounding area as a remaining area of the processing area not being located within the core area. An average brightness of the core area is compared to an average brightness of the surrounding area. Then a smoothing process is performed to blend the core area with the surrounding area to correct the eye circle when the average brightness of the core area is greater than that of the surrounding area by more than a first threshold. | 08-22-2013 |
20130223758 | Stitched Digital Images - Disclosed is a method of blending stitched document image portions. The method identifies background pixels and foreground pixels on each boundary of the image portions. Pixels of the image portions are then modified based on a pixel value difference between corresponding background pixels on the respective boundary of the first and second portions. | 08-29-2013 |
20130243348 | CONTRAST TO NOISE RATIO (CNR) ENHANCER - A method includes enhancing a contrast to noise ratio (CNR) of image data, generating CNR enhanced image data, wherein the CNR enhanced image data has a substantially same image quality as the image data. A computing system ( | 09-19-2013 |
20130251285 | IMAGE PROCESSOR AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - Disclosed herein is an image processor including: a random number sequence generation section adapted to generate a random number sequence; a random number-superimposed luminance variable generation section adapted to generate a random number-superimposed luminance variable by superimposing the random number sequence on a luminance variable; and a random number-superimposed image signal generation section adapted to generate a random number-superimposed image signal by superimposing the random number-superimposed luminance variable on an image signal. | 09-26-2013 |
20130287313 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR IMPROVING THE VISIBILITY OF FEATURES OF AN IMAGE - A system and method provide enhanced perceived contrast within a region of interest ( | 10-31-2013 |
20130336596 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE AND METHOD - For each pixel in an image (Din), a contrast correlation value (CT) is detected for peripheral areas centered around the pixel to be corrected ( | 12-19-2013 |
20130343671 | METHOD FOR MINIMIZING SCINTILLATION IN DYNAMIC IMAGES - A method for reducing scintillation in an image of a scene includes receiving an input sequence of images of the scene and grouping a first plurality of images of the sequence of images into a first subset of images comprising a first number of images that occur in sequence within the input sequence of images of the scene. The method also includes grouping a second plurality of images of the sequence of images into a second subset of images comprising a second number of images that occur in sequence within the input sequence of images of the scene. The method further includes generating a set of averaged images comprising an averaged image for the first subset of images and an averaged image for the second subset of image and outputting a composite image based at least the set of averaged images. | 12-26-2013 |
20140016880 | SYSTEM FOR HIGH AMBIENT IMAGE ENHANCEMENT - A system for improving content visibility on a display under low-contrast viewing conditions using an image process technique. | 01-16-2014 |
20140056538 | DISTORTION OF DIGITAL IMAGES USING SPATIAL OFFSETS FROM IMAGE REFERENCE POINTS - A method for distorting a digital image comprising receiving the coordinates of one or more than one image reference point defined by a user within the digital image, receiving one or more than one spatial offset assigned by the user and associated with the coordinates of the one or more than one defined image reference point, providing a mixing function algorithm embodied on a computer-readable medium for distorting the digital image, calculating an offset matrix by applying the mixing function algorithm based on the one or more than one spatial offset and the coordinates of the one or more than one defined image reference point; and distorting the digital image by application of the offset matrix. A graphic tag may be associated with each of the defined image reference points and displayed over the digital image, and the assignment of the spatial offset may be accomplished by movement of the graphic tag with the pointing device. Abstract image reference points may be used to limit distortion. | 02-27-2014 |
20140064634 | ENHANCING DYNAMIC RANGES OF IMAGES - Methods and apparatus according to various aspects take as input image data in a lower-dynamic-range (LDR) format and produce as output enhanced image data having a dynamic range greater than that of the input image data (i.e. higher-dynamic range (HDR) image data). In some embodiments, the methods are applied to video data and are performed in real-time (i.e. processing of video frames to enhance the dynamic range of the video frames is completed at least on average at the frame rate of the video signal). | 03-06-2014 |
20140079334 | SYSTEM FOR PHOTOGRAPH ENHANCEMENT BY USER CONTROLLED LOCAL IMAGE ENHANCEMENT - In photography, High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology typically consists of (1) acquiring a wide dynamic range image and (2) adapting the wide dynamic range image to fit to the display range of the device. The first part can be achieved by using a special sensor or by combining two or more images with same or different exposures, and is optional. The second part, contrast adaptation, locally adapts the tone mapping function thus effectively re-using the available range. Described is a system and method that enables a user to create a new image by selectively combining contrast adapted and non-contrast adapted versions of the same image. The new image can retain the natural quality of the well illuminated areas and enhance salient features as selected by the user. | 03-20-2014 |
20140079335 | HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGE GENERATION AND RENDERING - Techniques and tools for high dynamic range (HDR) image rendering and generation. An HDR image generating system performs motion analysis on a set of lower dynamic range (LDR) images and derives relative exposure levels for the images based on information obtained in the motion analysis. These relative exposure levels are used when integrating the LDR images to form an HDR image. An HDR image rendering system tone maps sample values in an HDR image to a respective lower dynamic range value, and calculates local contrast values. Residual signals are derived based on local contrast, and sample values for an LDR image are calculated based on the tone-mapped sample values and the residual signals. User preference information can be used during various stages of HDR image generation or rendering. | 03-20-2014 |
20140086507 | IMAGE ENHANCEMENT METHODS AND SYSTEMS USING THE SAME - An embodiment of an image enhancement method is introduced for use in an electronic device. An image composed of a plurality of pixel values is first received, and each pixel therein is separated into two channels. The image is further divided into a plurality of blocks. A distribution of a selected channel is determined for each block, which is selected from the two channels. For each pixel, the pixel value of the selected channel is adjusted according to at least one distribution corresponding to at least one neighboring block. For each pixel, the pixel value of the other channel is adjusted according to the adjusted pixel value of the selected channel. As a result, the adjusted image is provided. | 03-27-2014 |
20140126835 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD, AND PROGRAM - There is provided an image processing apparatus that includes an ambient-light image obtaining section, a cumulative image generation section, and a high-quality image generation section. The ambient-light image obtaining section obtains an ambient-light image in a first time range, the ambient-light image being an image of an object captured with a predetermined exposure time. The cumulative image generation section generates a cumulative image in a second time range, the cumulative image being obtained by cumulative addition of each pixel value in a plurality of images, the plurality of images being of the object sequentially captured with the predetermined exposure time. The high-quality image generation section generates a high-quality image, the high-quality image being obtained by subtracting a pixel value in the ambient-light image from a corresponding pixel value in a normalized image, the normalized image being the cumulative image normalized based on a total sum of the exposure time. | 05-08-2014 |
20140133778 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE ADJUSTING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIUM - An image processing apparatus includes: a decomposing section that decomposes a luminance component of a given original image into a plurality of band images in respective bands; a band intensity calculating section that calculates band intensities of the respective band images; and a determining section that determines band selection information indicating an emphasis band and band emphasis information to be used for controlling a degree of image emphasis based on the band intensities of the respective bands. | 05-15-2014 |
20140161369 | FLUOROSCOPY APPARATUS, FLUOROSCOPY SYSTEM, AND FLUORESCENCE-IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - A fluoroscopy apparatus includes a preprocessing section that multiplies at least one of a fluorescence image and a reference-light image by a coefficient by which distance characteristics of fluorescence intensity and distance characteristics of return-light intensity acquired from a standard sample in advance are made directly proportional to each other to generate a correction fluorescence image and a correction reference-light image; a divided-image generating section that divides the correction fluorescence image by the correction reference-light image to generate a divided image; a threshold-setting section that sets a threshold based on a mean grayscale level of pixels in the divided image; an image-adjusting section that enhances contrast between a region with grayscale levels above the set threshold set by the threshold-setting section and a region with grayscale levels below the threshold in the divided image; and a monitor that displays the divided image with the enhanced contrast. | 06-12-2014 |
20140177973 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR CORRECTING SPATIAL RESPONSE FOR IMAGING FOURIER TRANSFORM SPECTROMETERS - A method for correcting spatial response for an imaging Fourier transform spectrometer comprises the following steps: a prior step of calculation of the equalization parameters comprising a gain and an offset from data forming calibration scenes; a step of determination of equalization coefficients at a so-called pseudo superpixel level determining the gains and offsets at macropixel level from the data from a raw image that are collected by the imaging spectrometer in image mode, and gains and offsets determined in the prior step; and a step of equalization at pseudo superpixel level, applying the equalization coefficients to a macropixel from an acquisition in the interferogram mode of the imaging spectrometer in order to restore an equalized interferogram. | 06-26-2014 |
20140185955 | BLEMISH DETECTION METHOD - A blemish detection method includes the following steps: capturing a first image using an image sensor; adjusting the brightness of the first image to obtain a second image; calculating a brightness ratio of each pixel in the second image; marking the pixels of which the brightness ratios are greater than or equal to a predetermined reference value as “1”, and marking the other pixels as “0”; calculating the quantity of pixels in a continuous area in which all pixels are marked as “1”; and determining that the continuous area is a blemish if the quantity of pixels in the continuous area is greater than or equal to a predetermined pixel quantity. | 07-03-2014 |
20140193095 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMAGE CORRECTION - Image correcting methods and apparatuses for removing speckles from an image are provided. The image correcting method includes selecting a first region in an image; removing a speckle from a second region except for the first region from the image by using image information at a predetermined frequency band in the image; and increasing a contrast level of the first region. | 07-10-2014 |
20140205200 | IMAGE BINARIZATION USING DYNAMIC SUB-IMAGE DIVISION - Image binarization method and device for converting a grayscale image into a black and white binary image are provided. The grayscale image is divided into sub-images dynamically created from pixel to pixel containing a given pixel as well as neighboring pixels. A threshold for each pixel is determined based on the color values of all the pixels in the sub-image. Therefore, at a certain color value, this given pixel is converted to white and at another color value the pixel is converted black. The foregoing is effectuated pixel by pixel in a dynamic fashion evaluating each pixel relative to its neighboring pixels in order to produce a binary image. | 07-24-2014 |
20140233862 | LOCAL AREA PROCESSING USING PACKED DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS - Described herein are devices and techniques for providing adaptable Local Area Processing (LAP) contrast enhancement of imagery by redistributing pixel intensity values in a dynamic range of an imaging device according to a packed statistical distribution function, wherein the redistribution is achieved according to a recursive packing factor. | 08-21-2014 |
20140270569 | AUTOMATED GEOSPATIAL IMAGE MOSAIC GENERATION - Automatic generation of a mosaic comprising a plurality of geospatial images. An embodiment of the automatic mosaic generation may include automated source image selection that includes comparison of source images to base layer image to determine radiometric similar source images. Additionally, an embodiment of an automatic cutline generator may be provided to automatically determine a cutline when merging two images such that radiometric differences between the images along the cutline are reduced. In this regard, less perceivable outlines may be provided. Further still, an embodiment of a radiometric normalization module may be provided that may determine radiometric adjustments to source images to match certain properties of the base layer image. In some embodiments, when processing source images, the source images may be downsampled during a portion of the processing to reduce computational overhead. Additionally, some highly parallel computations may be performed by a GPU to further enhance performance. | 09-18-2014 |
20140307979 | ELECTRONIC APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - According to one embodiment, an electronic apparatus includes a calculator and a processor. The calculator calculates a weighted average image from a first image, a second image and a third image, by using a weight based on a difference between the first image and the second image and a difference between the first image and the third image. The processor applies, based on the weight, an image quality process of a first intensity to a first position in the weighted average image, applies an image quality process of a second intensity weaker than the first intensity to a second position in the weighted average image and to applies an image quality process of a third intensity weaker than the second intensity to a third position in the weighted average image. | 10-16-2014 |
20140328548 | ENHANCING CONTENT APPEARANCE - Implementations generally relate to enhancing content appearance. In some implementations, a method includes receiving an image, selecting a reference object in the image. The method also includes determining one or more image parameter adjustments based on the selected reference object, and applying the one or more image parameter adjustments to the entire image. | 11-06-2014 |
20140334743 | METHOD FOR ENHANCING LOCAL CONTRAST OF AN IMAGE - A method for enhancing local contrast of an image. The method comprises receiving a component of an image, computing a wavelets decomposition of the received component into wavelet coefficients, determining at least three subsets of wavelets coefficients based on a first threshold, a second threshold and computed wavelet coefficients, modifying the determined at least three subsets by applying at least a sharpening transformation on wavelet coefficients of at least one subset in said at least three subsets, recombining the at least three subsets into final wavelet coefficients, and reconstructing a new component based on the final wavelet coefficients. | 11-13-2014 |
20140341481 | Methods and Apparatus for Image Processing and Analysis - Methods and apparatus to providing image fusion using a number of image processing approaches. In one embodiment, a single image is processed and image fusion is performed. In exemplary embodiments of the invention, image enhancement, denoising, edge detection, etc., can be provided. | 11-20-2014 |
20150010248 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD USING THE SAME - An image processing apparatus for adjusting the luminance of a target pixel of an image is provided. The target pixel includes original pixel data and corresponds to a mask value. The image processing apparatus includes a luminance detection unit, a luminance compensation unit and a mapping unit. The luminance detection unit generates an original luminance value according to the original pixel data. The luminance compensation unit adjusts the original luminance value according to a non-linear function to generate a compensated luminance value. The mapping unit generates adjusted pixel data according to the compensated luminance value. The non-linear function at least includes a first monomial function, which has a base part associated with an inverse value of the original luminance value and an exponent part associated with the mask value. | 01-08-2015 |
20150010249 | METHOD FOR DYNAMIC RANGE EDITING - A method of displaying a high dynamic range image, comprising receiving the high dynamic range image, calculating a first set of tone mapping parameters as a function of the high dynamic range image, sub-sampling the first set of tone mapping parameters at a first resolution to create a first sub-sampled parameter set, creating a first tone-mapped image by processing the high dynamic range image as a function of the first sub-sampled parameter set, and displaying the first tone-mapped image. A method of composting a plurality of versions of an image to create the high dynamic range image is also disclosed such that the compositing may be modified as a function of received user input. | 01-08-2015 |
20150036946 | METRICS TO IDENTIFY IMAGE SMOOTHNESS - A system includes a structure module, graininess module, mottle module, and standard deviation (STD) module. The structure module is to identify a structure metric based on an input digital image, and remove a structured nonuniformity from the input digital image to produce a second input digital image. The graininess module is to identify a graininess metric based on the second input digital image. The mottle module is to identify a mottle metric based on the second input digital image. The STD module is to identify a STD metric that is to correspond to overall smoothness of the input digital image. | 02-05-2015 |
20150063718 | TECHNIQUES FOR ENHANCING LOW-LIGHT IMAGES - Techniques are described for enhancing quality of a first image that is captured in a low-light environment. In one embodiment, a second image is generated by brightening a plurality of pixels in the first image based on a predefined criteria. A third image is generated using an edge-preserving noise reduction algorithm based on the second image. Further, a composite image is generated by obtaining a weighted average of the first image and the third image. The techniques described herein can be applied to an image and/or to each frame of a video that is captured in low-light environments. | 03-05-2015 |
20150063719 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS FOR REMOVING HAZE CONTAINED IN STILL IMAGE AND METHOD THEREOF - An image processing apparatus for removing haze from an image includes a haze brightness measurer, a transmission estimator and an image reconstructor. The haze brightness measurer is configured to measure haze brightness in the image. The transmission estimator is configured to estimate a blockwise transmission based on a final cost function value calculated by a contrast and an image loss of the image, and to estimate a pixelwise transmission by using the blockwise transmission. The image reconstructor is configured to generate a reconstructed image by using the haze brightness and the pixelwise transmission. | 03-05-2015 |
20150071563 | IMAGE-PROCESSING APPARATUS FOR REMOVING HAZE CONTAINED IN VIDEO, AND METHOD THEREFOF - An image processing apparatus includes a haze brightness measurer to measure haze brightness in an image containing haze, a transmission estimator to estimate a blockwise transmission for generating a least final cost function value that is calculated by using a contrast, an image loss and a time loss of the image and to estimate a pixelwise transmission based on the estimated blockwise transmission, and an image reconstructor to reconstruct the image by using the measured haze brightness and the estimated pixelwise transmission. | 03-12-2015 |
20150093040 | Backlight Detection Method and Device - A backlight detection method and device, and the method includes acquiring a brightness value of each image block in a to-be-checked image, determining a brightness relationship between the adjacent image blocks according to the brightness value of each image block; and determining a dark region and a bright region in the to-be-checked image according to the brightness relationship between the adjacent image blocks, and determining whether the to-be-checked image is a backlight scenario according to the dark region and the bright region. The backlight detection method and device provided by the embodiments of the present invention can improve accuracy of backlight detection. | 04-02-2015 |
20150146997 | REDUCING THE DYNAMIC RANGE OF IMAGE DATA - This disclosure concerns the determination of low dynamic range image data from high dynamic range image data. A processor determines the low dynamic range image data by optimising a degree to which the low dynamic range image data satisfies a local contrast constraint and a global consistency constraint. The local contrast constraint is based on a local contrast in a perception space while the global consistency constraint is based on a relationship between points in the high dynamic range image data. The determined low dynamic range image data preserves the local contrast from the high dynamic range image data while also preserving the relationship between points in the high dynamic range image data to a high degree. As a result, the method prevents contrast distortion, halos and artifacts and ordering of level lines (isocontours) is preserved. | 05-28-2015 |
20150302563 | Relighting Fragments for Insertion into Content - A fragment is relit for insertion into a target scene of an image by obtaining a fragment model for the fragment. A set of detail maps for the fragment model are generated, each of which encodes fine-scale shading effects from the surface detail of the fragment. A target scene model is obtained for the target scene, and the fragment model is inserted into the target scene model. The target scene model with inserted fragment model is rendered, and a composited target scene is generated. A modified target scene is generated by combining the composited target scene and the set of detail maps. Weights assigned to the different detail maps can be changed by the user, allowing the modified target scene to be readily altered without re-rendering the target scene model with the inserted fragment model. | 10-22-2015 |
20150302565 | IMAGE PROCESSOR AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - Disclosed herein is an image processor including: a random number sequence generation section adapted to generate a random number sequence; a random number-superimposed luminance variable generation section adapted to generate a random number-superimposed luminance variable by superimposing the random number sequence on a luminance variable; and a random number-superimposed image signal generation section adapted to generate a random number-superimposed image signal by superimposing the random number-superimposed luminance variable on an image signal. | 10-22-2015 |
20150325021 | IMAGE FUSING METHOD - Provided is an image fusing apparatus for fusing a thermal image and a visible image of a subject. The image fusing apparatus includes: a determination processor configured to determine importance of each pixel, based on a luminance value thereof, of the thermal image and the visible image; a pixel coefficient setting processor configured to set a pixel coefficient for each pixel of the thermal image based on the importance of each pixel of the thermal image and the visible image; a thermal image processor configured to generate another thermal image by applying the pixel coefficient to the luminance value of each pixel of the thermal image; and an image fusing processor configured to fuse the other thermal image and the visible image to generate a fused image. | 11-12-2015 |
20150332442 | IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD FOR DYNAMICALLY ADJUSTING LUMINANCE AND CONTRAST OF IMAGE - An image processing method for adjusting the luminance and contrast of an input image comprises the following steps. First, local spatial luminance statistics is performed on the first pixels of the input image to generate a luminance image including a plurality of second pixels. Then, from a preset mapping curve group comprising a plurality of smooth mapping curves, a corresponding smooth mapping curve is selected for each of the second pixels according to an adjusting function. Next, the pixel values of the second pixels are adjusted according to the corresponding smooth mapping curves to generate an adjusted image. | 11-19-2015 |
20150332443 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE, MONITORING CAMERA, AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - An image processing device for correcting atmospheric turbulence in a first input image included in a video includes: a determination unit which determines an atmospheric turbulence intensity which indicates an intensity of the atmospheric turbulence; and a correction unit which corrects the atmospheric turbulence in the first input image, according to the atmospheric turbulence intensity determined by the determination unit, wherein the atmospheric turbulence intensity determined by the determination unit has a value that increases with an increase in a ratio of a total number of pixels each having a difference in pixel value between the first input image and a frame temporally preceding the first input image to a total number of edge pixels included in the first input image or the frame temporally preceding, the difference being a predetermined threshold or more. | 11-19-2015 |
20150339807 | VIDEO CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT WITH SUB-SEGMENTS - A system and method for image contrast enhancement using sub-segments. A coarse piecewise linear transform is formed based on the intensity distribution in an image, the segments of the piecewise linear transform selected to produce, when the piecewise linear transform is applied to the image, an improved intensity distribution, e.g., one approximating a Rayleigh distribution. A fine piecewise linear transform is formed by forming sub-segments at each of the breakpoints of the coarse piecewise linear transform. | 11-26-2015 |
20150371373 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR REMOVING FOG IN IMAGE - The present disclosure relates to an apparatus and a method for removing fog in an image capable of providing a defogged image without a sense of difference by adaptively controlling defogging parameters in response to a density of fog to remove fog. | 12-24-2015 |
20160005154 | SYSTEM AND PROCESSOR IMPLEMENTED METHOD FOR IMPROVED IMAGE QUALITY AND GENERATING AN IMAGE OF A TARGET ILLUMINATED BY QUANTUM PARTICLES - According to some embodiments, system and methods for image improvement comprise: receiving a plurality of frames of a given region of interest, the frames comprised of a plurality of pixels; determining, based on a quantum property of the frames, a normalized pixel intensity value for each pixel of each of the plurality of frames; and generating an improved image of the given region of interest based on the plurality of frames and the corresponding normalized pixel intensity values for the frames, the order of the image being two. Also embodiments for generating an image of a target illuminated by quantum entangled particles, such as, photons, are disclosed. | 01-07-2016 |
20160012573 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR SELECTING AN IMAGE DYNAMIC RANGE CONVERSION OPERATOR | 01-14-2016 |
20160035075 | ELECTRONIC APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - According to one embodiment, an electronic apparatus includes a processor. The processor aligns a second image with a first image, the first image including a subject captured from a first position, the second image including the subject captured from a position different from the first position. The processor calculates a first weight for each pixel in the first image and a second weight for each pixel in the aligned second image. The processor calculates a composite image by adding each pixel in the first image to the corresponding pixel in the aligned second image based on the first weight for each pixel in the first image and the second weight for each pixel in the aligned second image. | 02-04-2016 |
20160086314 | METHOD TO ENHANCE CONTRAST WITH REDUCED VISUAL ARTIFACTS - A method to enhance the contrast of a set of pixels each pixels being characterized by a set of color attributes comprising the steps of: determining a first property of the set of pixels; determining a second property of the set of pixels; determining, for each pixel of the set of pixels, a first property of said pixel; and modifying the color attributes of each pixel of the set of pixels as a function of the first and second property of the set of pixels and the first property of said pixel. | 03-24-2016 |
20160117803 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS CAPABLE OF PROPERLY EMPHASIZING DIFFERENCES IN BRIGHTNESS BETWEEN BRIGHT SPOTS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND STORAGE MEDIUM - A technique that makes it possible to obtain a natural photographed image which does not give a feeling of strangeness and emphasizes differences in brightness between bright stars and low-brightness stars, without depending on a photographic scene. In a case where photographing the starry sky, the number of bright spots is detected from a picked-up image, and image processing performed on the picked-up image is controlled to at least blurring processing or edge emphasis processing or neither the blurring processing nor the edge emphasis processing, according to the number of detected bright spots. | 04-28-2016 |
20160148357 | Image Compensation Value Computation - Image compensation value computation techniques are described. In one or more implementations, an image key value is calculated, by a computing device, for image data based on values of pixels of the image data. A tuning value is computed by the computing device using the image key value. The tuning value is configured to adjust how the image data is to be measured to compute an image compensation value. The image compensation value is then computed by the computing device such that a statistic computed in accordance with the tuning value approaches a target value. The image compensation value is applied by the computing device to adjust the image data. | 05-26-2016 |
20160171672 | METHOD FOR DYNAMIC RANGE EDITING | 06-16-2016 |
20160189353 | Method for vignetting correction of image and apparatus therefor - Method and apparatuses for correcting vignetting effects of an image are disclosed. A method for vignetting correction of an image according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure may comprise receiving a two-dimensional image; calculating a radial bright channel representing intensity of the two-dimensional image; estimating a vignetting function of the two-dimensional image having similarity to the calculated radial bright channel; and correcting the vignetting effects of the two-dimensional image by using the estimated vignetting function. The vignetting correction methods and apparatuses according to the present disclosure can rapidly correct vignetting effects of an image by using a smaller memory, and correct vignetting effects of an arbitrary single image without being affected by a camera setting and camera lenses used for the image. | 06-30-2016 |
20160196641 | IMAGE MANIPULATION | 07-07-2016 |