Patents Examined by Sean Motsinger
  • Patent number: 9552527
    Abstract: An apparatus, method, and computer-readable storage medium for determining a rotation angle of text. The method includes computing, for each object of a plurality of objects included in text within an image, a distance to a closest neighboring object, computing an average distance of the distances to the closest neighboring objects, determining a ratio between the average distance and an average font stroke width, the average font stroke width being an average of a font stroke width of each of the plurality of objects, and determining a rotation angle of the text by comparing the ratio to a threshold value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 27, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2017
    Assignee: LEAD TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventors: Moe Daher, Waseem Shadid
  • Patent number: 9552529
    Abstract: A method and system to enhance analysis of electrophoretic bands by overlaying only the pixels of interest. The overlaid pixels are superimposed as a layer above, i.e., in the foreground of, the overlaid image, i.e., in the background. A user employs the superimposed pixels for molecular weight determination and is still able to generate densitometry analysis of the remaining pixels in the overlaid image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2017
    Assignee: PIERCE BIOTECHNOLOGY, INC.
    Inventors: Rachael Mae Berry, Nikki L. Jarrett, Eric Leigh Hommema, Kelli D. Feather-Henigan, Suk J. Hong, Brian Lynn Webb
  • Patent number: 9542405
    Abstract: An image processing system and an image processing method. The image processing system includes: an image analysis engine configured to analyze an input image and generate metadata about the input image; an indexing engine configured to structuralize and organize the metadata and generate index data based on the metadata; a search engine configured to extract index data matching a search condition and image data corresponding to the index data matching the search condition, from the input image; and a browsing engine configured to generate a heatmap based on the extracted index data and image data and display the heatmap and an image matching the search condition on a screen.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2017
    Assignee: Hanwha Techwin Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Dongjun Park, Joonyoung Park, Yeongeol Ryu, Hakchul Shin
  • Patent number: 9544486
    Abstract: A system for generating an image of a seal impression. The system includes: means for acquiring N still images of a face of a seal corresponding respectively to N beams of light striking the face in succession, wherein N is at least 2; and means for combining the N still images to generate a composite image of pixels, wherein a common area of pixels in the composite image appears on the face of the seal in all still images of the N still images, and wherein the common area includes a character area pertaining to where an engraved character is located on the face of the seal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 8, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Yasuhiro Kitabatake, Tetsuo Shiba
  • Patent number: 9542704
    Abstract: Systems and methods are described that recommend images, items, and/or metadata based at least in part on a reference color palette or reference color name. A color name can be converted into a representation of the color name in a color space. The reference color can be used to identify images that contain the reference color. The identified images and associated metadata can be analyzed, sorted and provided as an ordered list of items. Systems and methods are also described that identify items that contain colors affiliated with the reference color. Systems and methods are also described that validate color identifier information in metadata associated with an image. Systems and methods are also described that identify non-color specific keywords associated with the reference color.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES INC.
    Inventors: Charles Shearer Dorner, Paul Barnhart Sayre, III
  • Patent number: 9536323
    Abstract: A data storage control apparatus includes a compression part that performs lossless compression for reducing a data amount on image data that is in units of blocks, a determination element for determining whether lossless compression is possible or not, and a storage control part that performs storage control for, if the determination element has determined that lossless compression is possible, causing data obtained through lossless compression to be stored as compressed data in a storage part, and if the determination element has determined that lossless compression is not possible, causing the image data in units of blocks to be stored in the storage part.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 8, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2017
    Assignee: MegaChips Corporation
    Inventor: Akira Okamoto
  • Patent number: 9524563
    Abstract: Systems and methods are described that recommend images, items, and/or metadata based at least in part on a reference color palette or reference color name. A color name can be converted into a representation of the color name in a color space. The reference color can be used to identify images that contain the reference color. The identified images and associated metadata can be analyzed, sorted and provided as an ordered list of items. Systems and methods are also described that identify items that contain colors affiliated with the reference color. Systems and methods are also described that validate color identifier information in metadata associated with an image. Systems and methods are also described that identify non-color specific keywords associated with the reference color.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2016
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Paul Barnhart Sayre, III, Charles Shearer Dorner, Gonzalo Alberto Ramos
  • Patent number: 9524432
    Abstract: The subject technology provides embodiments for performing fast corner detection in a given image for augmented reality applications. Embodiments disclose a high-speed test that examines intensities of pairs of pixels around a candidate center pixel. In one example, the examined pairs are comprised of pixels that are diametrically opposite ends of a circle formed with the candidate center pixel. Further, a pyramid of images including four rings of surrounding pixels is generated. An orientation of the pixels from the four rings are determined and a vector of discrete values of the pixels are provided. Next, a forest of trees are generated for the vector of discrete values corresponding to a descriptor for a first image. For a second image including a set of descriptors, approximate nearest neighbors are determined from the forest of tree representing closest matching descriptors from the first image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2016
    Assignee: A9.com, Inc.
    Inventors: William Brendel, Nityananda Jayadevaprakash, David Creighton Mott, Jie Feng
  • Patent number: 9508129
    Abstract: Methods and systems for dehazing images with increased accuracy and reduced error enhancement. In particular, one or more embodiments estimate a transmission map representing an amount of unscattered light reflected from objects in an input image. One or more embodiments refine the transmission map to obtain transmission information consistent with a depth of the objects in the input image. One or more embodiments also determine a radiance gradient for the input image. One or more embodiments generate an output image from the input image by removing haze based on the refined transmission map and preventing error enhancement based on the determined radiance gradient.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: ADOBE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Jue Wang, Chen Chen
  • Patent number: 9508128
    Abstract: The present invention provides an image-correction system, including an image-capture module, a first calculation module, a second calculation module and an output module. The image-capture module obtains an input image and a guide image. The first calculation module obtains a first correction image according to a first parameter and a second parameter, obtains the first parameter according to the mean value of the guide image, a variance value of the guide image, a mean value of the input image and a smooth function, and obtains the second parameter according to the first parameter, the mean value of the guide image and the mean value of the input image. The second calculation module obtains the ratio value of the mean value of the guide image and the variance value of the guide image. The output module outputs the first correction image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: SILICON OPTRONICS, INC.
    Inventor: Chun-Hung Lin
  • Patent number: 9508135
    Abstract: An improved image processing system for enhancing a blurred image is described herein. According to an embodiment, a method for enhancing a blurred image provided by an image capturing device includes generating a standard gray low-resolution image by convoluting the blurred image with a Gaussian low-pass filter, extracting one or more high-frequency components from the standard gray low-resolution image, obtaining one or more higher-frequency nonlinear components by approximating the one or more high-frequency components, and adding the higher-frequency components to the blurred image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 5, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Inventor: Trieu-Kien Truong
  • Patent number: 9489748
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes the following elements. An image information obtaining unit obtains image information concerning a first image. A position information obtaining unit obtains first position information indicating a representative position of a specified region which has been specified by a user from the first image as an image region to be subjected to image processing. A region detector detects the specified region from the first position information. An image processor performs image processing on the specified region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 8, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2016
    Assignee: FUJI XEROX CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Makoto Sasaki
  • Patent number: 9483814
    Abstract: A single still input image is converted into a decomposition video that, when played, appears to be a close facsimile of the input image. Each frame of the decomposition video has a subset of the pixels of the input image that is disjoint from the subset of pixels selected for any other frame. A union of the subsets, represented by each decomposition video frame, contains all the pixels of the input image. To preserve sufficient brightness, a decomposition video generally needs to contain a relatively small number of frames. To achieve effective and efficient blocking, of the content of the input image as it appears in each frame of a decomposition video, the present invention focuses upon a spatial filtering strategy and, preferably, a two-tiered strategy. A first tier focuses upon the obscuring of relatively high frequency spatial frequencies, while a second tier focuses upon the obscuring of relatively low frequency spatial frequencies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2016
    Assignee: Bulldog Software LLC
    Inventors: George Finley Harper, Todd Hutchinson Snyder
  • Patent number: 9478004
    Abstract: A computer program product includes instructions for a processor to perform a method of improving image structure and coherence, and/or for simplification/stylization. The method includes inputting the image, by: scanning the image; image capture using a camera; and/or image creation using a computer. Multi-channel images are converted into a single-channel grayscale image, which is separated into a first image component—the high spatial frequencies, and a second component image—the low spatial frequencies. The first and second component images are each formed by filtering to remove frequencies outside of respective upper and lower threshold frequencies. A gain multiplier is applied to the filtered first and second component images to control detail amplification. The first and second component images are each blurred at the respective upper and lower threshold frequencies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Inventor: John Balestrieri
  • Patent number: 9478007
    Abstract: A method includes determining, by a hardware processor and based on an image frame, a first edge strength distribution on a horizontal edge map and a second edge strength distribution on a vertical edge map. The first and second edge strength distributions are redistributed to narrow at least one of the first and second edge strength distributions. Non-texture regions of pixels are determined based on a data correlation map of the image frame. Edge strength magnitudes for the pixels of the non-texture regions of the horizontal edge map and the vertical edge map are determined. A high resolution frame is generated by adjusting intensity of respective pixels of the non-texture region of the horizontal edge map and the vertical edge map, the adjusting being based on neighboring pixels edge strength magnitudes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Bo Yang, Li Tao
  • Patent number: 9472037
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method of re-orienting an image of a media item, comprising determining at least one linear array formed by a plurality of locations associated with an image of the media item; determining a skew angle of said linear array with respect to a reference axis; and re-orienting said image by rotating said image responsive to said skew angle. Apparatus for re-orienting an image of a media item and a document processing module are also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 18, 2016
    Assignee: NCR CORPORATION
    Inventor: Ping Chen
  • Patent number: 9460339
    Abstract: A method for image processing includes receiving a depth image of a scene containing a human subject and receiving a color image of the scene containing the human subject. A part of a body of the subject is identified in at least one of the images. A quality of both the depth image and the color image is evaluated, and responsively to the quality, one of the images is selected to be dominant in processing of the part of the body in the images. The identified part is localized in the dominant one of the images, while using supporting data from the other one of the images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2016
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Shai Litvak, Tomer Yanir, Eran Guendelman
  • Patent number: 9451290
    Abstract: This document describes techniques and apparatuses for implementing multi-spectral compression. These techniques enable a computing device to capture a set of images at different spectral sensitivities using a multi-spectral array imager. Once the set of images are captured by the multi-spectral array imager, the set may be encoded using encoding techniques that involve spectral prediction in addition to spatial and temporal prediction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 16, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2016
    Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC
    Inventors: John T. Bretscher, Randall S. Vaas
  • Patent number: 9436999
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer readable media for adjusting the orientation of an image frame and a scene depicted in the image frame are described. In general, techniques are disclosed for analyzing an image with one or more feature detectors to identify features in the image. An alignment or position associated with one or more features identified in the image may be used to determine a proper orientation for the image frame. The image can then be rotated to the proper orientation. It may also be determined if a scene depicted in the image is properly aligned in the rotated image orientation. If not, alignment information associated with the identified features may be utilized to straighten the depicted scene.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 6, 2016
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Avi Cieplinski, Jan Erik Solem, Jerremy Holland, Garrett Johnson, Russell Reid, Russell Webb
  • Patent number: 9424373
    Abstract: Site modeling using image data fusion. Geometric shapes are generated to represent portions of one or more structures based on digital height data and a two-dimensional segmentation of portions of the one or more structures is generated based on three-dimensional line segments and digital height data. A labeled segmentation of the one or more structures is generated based on the geometric shapes and the two-dimensional segmentation. A three-dimensional model of the one or more structures is generated based on the labeled segmentation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2016
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventor: Lukas Zebedin