Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090087588 | EDGE DENSIFICATION FOR FILM BOILING PROCESS - A method and apparatus are disclosed for improving densification of porous substrate using a film boiling process. In particular, the disclosed method and apparatus permit more complete densification of a substrate (i.e., densification closer to the surface of the substrate) by providing a sort of barrier that reduces cooling of the surface of the substrate being densified caused by contact with the relatively cool boiling liquid precursor of the densifying material, such as carbon. In particular, contact between the substrate and the liquid precursor is reduced using one or both of physical barriers (such as a mesh material) or structures that promote the formation of an insulating gaseous layer between the substrate and the liquid precursor (such as a plate closely spaced apart from the surface of the porous substrate). | 04-02-2009 |
20100156005 | POWER CONTROL FOR DENSIFICATION OF ONE OR MORE POROUS ARTICLES - A method of controlling power applied to an induction coil assembly used for densifying porous articles with a liquid matrix precursor. The control of applied power addresses dynamic changes in the electrical characteristics of the porous article being densified as it becomes denser. In particular, the power applied is controlled in accordance with changes in resonant frequency of the coupled system of the induction heating system and the porous article. | 06-24-2010 |
20100230402 | APPARATUS FOR POROUS MATERIAL DENSIFICATION - The present invention relates to an inductive heating apparatus, particularly using a liquid deposition precursor, for densifying porous articles. The inductive heating apparatus using induction coils that are made from machined or milled flat metal plates, such as copper plate, instead of bending a member (especially a hollow member) into a coil shape. The induction coils according to the present invention can be more precisely and more consistently fabricated than conventional bending techniques. | 09-16-2010 |
20100297360 | METHOD FOR DENSIFICATION OF POROUS ARTICLES - A method of densifying porous substrates, such as brake performs, using a liquid precursor, in which the rate at which “fresh” or “new” liquid precursor is consumed is reduced by maintaining the liquid precursor being used for the densification at a purity level that is less that pure but still chemically suitable for obtaining the desired densification product. | 11-25-2010 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20110006080 | FLUID STORAGE AND DISPENSING SYSTEM HEATING UNIT - A heating unit for use in heating a fluid storage and dispensing system includes a wall module and a lid module. The modules include cover layers. Each module may include a heating component disposed between the cover layers and which is configured to convert electrical energy to heat energy and to distribute the heat energy. The heating component includes a heat generating element for converting electrical current to heat energy and a heat spreading element comprising carbon thermally coupled to the heat generating element. The modules may further include a thermal insulation layer. The modules may also include a receiving power connector electrically connected to the heat generating element. | 01-13-2011 |
20130328659 | Sealed Thermostat - A sealed thermostat includes a body, electrical leads extending from the body for electrically connecting the thermostat to a system, a sheath sized to encapsulate the body and having a wall terminating at an open end, the sheath being disposed around the body with at least one of the electrical leads extending from the open end, and a sealant disposed in the open end around at least one electrical lead and between at least one electrical lead and the wall, thereby sealing the body within the sheath. The sealant and sheath substantially completely isolate the body from gasses capable of being ignited by an arc within the body. | 12-12-2013 |
20140097206 | SYSTEMS, METHODS, AND DEVICES FOR STORING, HEATING, AND DISPENSING FLUID - A heating unit for use in heating a fluid storage and dispensing system includes a wall module and a lid module. The modules include cover layers. Each module may include a heating component disposed between the cover layers and which is configured to convert electrical energy to heat energy and to distribute the heat energy. The heating component includes a heat generating element for converting electrical current to heat energy and a heat spreading element comprising carbon thermally coupled to the heat generating element. The modules may further include a thermal insulation layer. The modules may also include a receiving power connector electrically connected to the heat generating element. | 04-10-2014 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20130272579 | ROBUST CROPPING OF LICENSE PLATE IMAGES - A method, system, and computer-usable tangible storage device for robustly cropping and accurately recognizing license plates to account for noise sources and interfering artifacts are disclosed. License plate images and sub-images can be tightly cropped utilizing an image-based classifier and gradient-based cropping. An image-based classifier can identify the location of valid characters within the image. Because of a number of noise sources, such as, for example, residual plate rotation and shear in the characters within the image, the image-based classifier performs a “rough” identification of the image boundaries. An additional processing step utilizing gradient-based cropping is performed to fine-tune the license plate image boundaries. Gradient-based cropping eliminates unwanted border artifacts that could substantially impact the segmentation and license plate character recognition results. | 10-17-2013 |
20130279758 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ROBUST TILT ADJUSTMENT AND CROPPING OF LICENSE PLATE IMAGES - Methods, systems and processor-readable media for robust tilt adjustment and cropping of a license plate image. A vehicle image can be captured by an image-capturing unit and converted to a binary image utilizing a binarization approach. A long run within the binary image can then be removed and a morphological filtering can be applied to break an unwanted connection between characters due to a license plate frame and an image noise. A connected component (CC) within the image can be identified and screened based on a number of key metrics to remove a most likely candidate character connected component. A line-fit based iterative search process can then be performed for robust tilt removal and vertical cropping of the license plate image to obtain a tight bounding box on the license plate characters if sufficient candidate characters remain after the search process. Otherwise, the region of interest can be rejected. | 10-24-2013 |
20130294654 | ROBUST CHARACTER SEGMENTATION FOR LICENSE PLATE IMAGES - A method and system for achieving accurate segmentation of characters with respect to a license plate image within a tight bounding box image. A vehicle image can be captured by an image capturing unit and processed utilizing an ALPR unit. A vertical projection histogram can be calculated to produce an initial character boundary (cuts) and local statistical information can be employed to split a large cut and insert a missing character. The cut can be classified as a valid and/or a suspect character and the suspect character can be analyzed. The suspect character can be normalized and passed to an OCR module for decoding and generating a confidence quote with every conclusion. The non-character images can be rejected at the OCR level by enforcing a confidence threshold. An adjoining suspect narrow character can be combined and the OCR confidence of the combined character can be assessed. | 11-07-2013 |
20140363052 | ADAPTIVE CHARACTER SEGMENTATION METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE RECOGNITION - Methods, systems and processor-readable media for adaptive character segmentation in an automatic license plate recognition application. A region of interest can be identified in an image of a license plate acquired via an automatic license plate recognition engine. Characters in the image with respect to the region of interest can be segmented using a histogram projection associated with particular segmentation threshold parameters. The characters in the image can be iteratively validated if a minimum number of valid characters is determined based on the histogram projection and the particular segmentation threshold parameters to produce character images sufficient to identify the license plate. | 12-11-2014 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20110298896 | SPECKLE NOISE REDUCTION FOR A COHERENT ILLUMINATION IMAGING SYSTEM - Described are methods and apparatus for reducing speckle noise in images, such as images of objects illuminated by coherent light sources and images of objects illuminated by interferometric fringe patterns. According to one method, an object is illuminated with a structured illumination pattern of coherent radiation projected along a projection axis. An angular orientation of the projection axis is modulated over an angular range during an image acquisition interval. Advantageously, shape features of the structured illumination pattern projected onto the surface of the object remain unchanged during image acquisition and the acquired images exhibit reduced speckle noise. The structured illumination pattern can be a fringe pattern such as an interferometric fringe pattern generated by a 3D metrology system used to determine surface information for the illuminated object. | 12-08-2011 |
20110299094 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR HIGH-SPEED PHASE SHIFTING FOR INTERFEROMETRIC MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS - Described are a method and apparatus for high-speed phase shifting of an optical beam. A transparent plate having regions of different optical thickness is illuminated by an optical beam along a path of incidence that extends through the regions. The transparent plate can be moved or the optical beam can be steered to generate the path of incidence. The optical beam exiting the transparent plate has an instantaneous phase value according to the region in which the optical beam is incident. Advantageously, the phase values are repeatable and stable regardless of the location of incidence of the optical beam within the respective regions, and phase changes at high modulation rates are possible. The method and apparatus can be used to modulate a phase difference of a pair of coherent optical beams such as in an interferometric fringe projection system. | 12-08-2011 |
20110316978 | INTENSITY AND COLOR DISPLAY FOR A THREE-DIMENSIONAL METROLOGY SYSTEM - Described are a method and apparatus for generating a display of a three-dimensional (“3D”) metrology surface. The method includes determining a 3D point cloud representation of a surface of an object in a point cloud coordinate space. An image of the object is acquired in a camera coordinate space and then transformed from the camera coordinate space to the point cloud coordinate space. The transformed image is mapped onto the 3D point cloud representation to generate a realistic display of the surface of the object. In one embodiment, a metrology camera used to acquire images for determination of the 3D point cloud is also used to acquire the image of the object so that the transformation between coordinate spaces is not performed. The display includes a grayscale or color shading for the pixels or surface elements in the representation. | 12-29-2011 |
20120062557 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROCESSING AND DISPLAYING INTRA-ORAL MEASUREMENT DATA - Provided are a system and method for generating and displaying intra-oral measurement data. A measurement field of view of an intra-oral scanning device is directed at a first region of an object scene to acquire image data related to the first region. The intra-oral scanning device is moved from the first region along a path proximal to one or more surfaces of the object scene to a second region of the object scene. The intra-oral scanning device acquires image data corresponding to the object scene along the path. A set of 3D data is presented in a display. 3D data are generated from the image data acquired for the first region of the object scene to the second region of the object scene. Presented in a window of the display is a current video image of acquired image data of the object scene in the measurement field of view. The current video image overlays a respective portion of a graphical representation of accumulated data of the set of 3D data. | 03-15-2012 |
20120062701 | METHOD OF DATA ACQUISITION FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL IMAGING - Described are embodiments of methods of obtaining three-dimensional (3D) surface data of an object scene such as an intra-oral cavity. For example, measured surfaces may include the enamel surface of teeth, the dentin substructure of teeth, gum tissue and various dental structures. The methods can also be applied in medical applications and other applications in which 3D measurement data are acquired with maneuverable 3D measurement devices. In certain embodiments, the measurement device is positioned and translated to enable 3D data to be acquired for a backbone 3D data set. Subsequent controlled motion of the measurement device enables additional 3D data to be acquired and accurately joined to the backbone 3D data set. | 03-15-2012 |
20140272774 | SCANNING SEQUENCE FOR AN INTRA-ORAL IMAGING SYSTEM - Provided are a system, method, and computer readable storage medium for generating an intra-oral scan of a dentition. A contiguous scan of an occlusal surface of at least a part of one arch of the dentition is generated. At least one additional surface is associated to the contiguous scan of the occlusal surface. | 09-18-2014 |
20140340733 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR HIGH-SPEED PHASE SHIFTING FOR INTERFEROMETRIC MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS - Described are a method and apparatus for high-speed phase shifting of an optical beam. A transparent plate having regions of different optical thickness is illuminated by an optical beam along a path of incidence that extends through the regions. The transparent plate can be moved or the optical beam can be steered to generate the path of incidence. The optical beam exiting the transparent plate has an instantaneous phase value according to the region in which the optical beam is incident. Advantageously, the phase values are repeatable and stable regardless of the location of incidence of the optical beam within the respective regions, and phase changes at high modulation rates are possible. The method and apparatus can be used to modulate a phase difference of a pair of coherent optical beams such as in an interferometric fringe projection system. | 11-20-2014 |