Patents Examined by Brian Quang Le
  • Patent number: 7689002
    Abstract: The invention concerns a method of detecting from a vehicle a bend in a road comprising a surface and road edges, comprising the following operations: taking an image of a road scene unfolding in front of the vehicle and at least partly illuminated by the vehicle, determining, for each pixel in the image a light decrease gradient, analysing these decrease gradients and determining an image of the road edges, mathematically discriminating the gradients from the image of the road edges, analyzing this discrimination and determining edges, and an angle of the bend. The invention also concerns a system for implementing the method of the invention comprising a camera mounted in the vehicle, an image processing unit and a neural network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2003
    Date of Patent: March 30, 2010
    Assignee: Valeo Vision
    Inventors: Maurice Milgram, Didierl Dumoncel, Catherine Achard, William Ivaldi
  • Patent number: 7457480
    Abstract: A method of plotting a bright line which starts from the pixel at a bright point in an image where a more natural mode of a cross filter effect can be applied to any digital photographic image. The bright line plot processing method includes steps of generating an image of the bright line using a predetermined bright line definition format; generating data of the pixel at the bright point; generating data of each pixel for the bright line from the pixel data produced by attenuating the data of the pixel at the bright point at a predetermined attenuation rate along the lengthwise and/or widthwise direction of the bright line and the pixel data of the image to be processed; and plotting the data of the pixels for the bright line on the image to be processed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2008
    Assignee: Noritsu Koki Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Koji Kita
  • Patent number: 7433492
    Abstract: A printing system that dynamically adjusts the resolution at which printing will occur based on the lightness or darkness of the medium upon which the image will be printed is provided. The reflectivity of the medium upon which an image is to be printed is determined, and hence the relative lightness or darkness of the medium. The resolution at which the image will be printed is adjusted based on the determined reflectivity of the medium. For lighter colored mediums, sufficient contrast between the printed image and the medium upon which the image is printed can be maintained utilizing a lower resolution, while a higher resolution must be utilized to maintain sufficient contrast for darker colored mediums. Since it is not necessary to utilize the higher resolution for all mediums to ensure sufficient contrast is always provided, the amount of ink used by the printing system is reduced.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2004
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2008
    Assignee: Pitney Bowes Inc.
    Inventors: Easwaran Nambudiri, John P. Miller, Lun Chan