Patents by Inventor Kaname Ogawa

Kaname Ogawa has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20110216942
    Abstract: An image-capturing apparatus for capturing an image by using a solid-state image-capturing device may include a face detector configured to detect a face of a human being on the basis of an image signal in a period until an image signal obtained by image capturing is recorded on a recording medium; an expression evaluation section configured to evaluate the expression of the detected face and to compute an expression evaluation value indicating the degree to which the detected face is close to a specific expression in relation to expressions other than the specific expression; and a notification section configured to notify notification information corresponding to the computed expression evaluation value to an image-captured person.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 17, 2011
    Publication date: September 8, 2011
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20110216218
    Abstract: An image-capturing apparatus for capturing an image by using a solid-state image-capturing device may include a face detector configured to detect a face of a human being on the basis of an image signal in a period until an image signal obtained by image capturing is recorded on a recording medium; an expression evaluation section configured to evaluate the expression of the detected face and to compute an expression evaluation value indicating the degree to which the detected face is close to a specific expression in relation to expressions other than the specific expression; and a notification section configured to notify notification information corresponding to the computed expression evaluation value to an image-captured person.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 17, 2011
    Publication date: September 8, 2011
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20110216217
    Abstract: An image-capturing apparatus for capturing an image by using a solid-state image-capturing device may include a face detector configured to detect a face of a human being on the basis of an image signal in a period until an image signal obtained by image capturing is recorded on a recording medium; an expression evaluation section configured to evaluate the expression of the detected face and to compute an expression evaluation value indicating the degree to which the detected face is close to a specific expression in relation to expressions other than the specific expression; and a notification section configured to notify notification information corresponding to the computed expression evaluation value to an image-captured person.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 17, 2011
    Publication date: September 8, 2011
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20110216216
    Abstract: An image-capturing apparatus for capturing an image by using a solid-state image-capturing device may include a face detector configured to detect a face of a human being on the basis of an image signal in a period until an image signal obtained by image capturing is recorded on a recording medium; an expression evaluation section configured to evaluate the expression of the detected face and to compute an expression evaluation value indicating the degree to which the detected face is close to a specific expression in relation to expressions other than the specific expression; and a notification section configured to notify notification information corresponding to the computed expression evaluation value to an image-captured person.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 17, 2011
    Publication date: September 8, 2011
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Patent number: 8014566
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes a moving image file storage unit operable to store a moving image file; an area selection receiving unit operable to receive a selection of a predetermined area corresponding to one of a plurality of frames forming the moving image file; a template image generating unit operable to generate as a template image an image of the selected area; an image matching unit operable to obtain the frames from the moving image file storage unit, and to match each of the frames against the template image to search for a matching frame containing an image similar to the template image; and a scene change detecting unit operable to detect a start and an end of a scene containing the matching frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2006
    Date of Patent: September 6, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20110199513
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes a moving image file storage unit operable to store a moving image file; an area selection receiving unit operable to receive a selection of a predetermined area corresponding to one of a plurality of frames forming the moving image file; a template image generating unit operable to generate as a template image an image of the selected area; an image matching unit operable to obtain the frames from the moving image file storage unit, and to match each of the frames against the template image to search for a matching frame containing an image similar to the template image; and a scene change detecting unit operable to detect a start and an end of a scene containing the matching frame.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 21, 2011
    Publication date: August 18, 2011
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20110055766
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus may control display of a GUI image including indexes that allow a user to select the entirety or part of an image content piece. The information processing apparatus may include a controller configured to control display of a first GUI image including an index of each of at least one image content piece, and to control a display of a second GUI image including face thumbnail images, which serve as indexes that allow the user to select the entirety or part of an image content piece corresponding to an index selected from the first GUI image by the user, the face thumbnail images corresponding to faces detected from the entirety or part of the image content piece.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 10, 2010
    Publication date: March 3, 2011
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Kaname Ogawa, Keiji Kanota, Makoto Yamada, Hiroshi Jinno
  • Patent number: 7853897
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus may control display of a GUI image including indexes that allow a user to select the entirety or part of an image content piece. The information processing apparatus may include a controller configured to control display of a first GUI image including an index of each of at least one image content piece, and to control a display of a second GUI image including face thumbnail images, which serve as indexes that allow the user to select the entirety or part of an image content piece corresponding to an index selected from the first GUI image by the user, the face thumbnail images corresponding to faces detected from the entirety or part of the image content piece.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 3, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2010
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Kaname Ogawa, Keiji Kanota, Makoto Yamada, Hiroshi Jinno
  • Publication number: 20100177206
    Abstract: An object detecting apparatus includes an evaluation information storage unit that stores evaluation information used for computing an evaluation value for each of a plurality of objects, where the evaluation value is used for evaluating which one of the objects is contained in an image, a determination information storage unit that stores determination information used for determining whether the object is contained in an image in association with each of the objects, a computing unit that computes the evaluation value for each of the objects by extracting features from a plurality of areas of the image using the evaluation information and comparing two of the extracted features, and a determination unit that determines whether the object is contained in the image using the determination information associated with the object relating to the evaluation value that satisfies a predetermined condition among the evaluation values computed for the objects.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 7, 2010
    Publication date: July 15, 2010
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20100177957
    Abstract: An object detecting device includes a comparing unit to extract feature amounts for two regions on a determining object image and compare a feature amount based on the two feature amounts extracted; and a computing unit to select one of two values having different absolute values according to the comparison result, and compute an evaluation value to determine whether or not an object is included in the determining object image, by performing computation with the selected value.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 8, 2010
    Publication date: July 15, 2010
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20100067742
    Abstract: An object detecting device includes a calculating unit configured to calculate gradient intensity and gradient orientation of luminance for a plurality of regions in an image and calculate a frequency distribution of the luminance gradient intensity as to the calculated luminance gradient orientation for each of the regions, and a determining unit configured to determine whether or not an identified object is included in the image by comparing a plurality of frequency distributions calculated for each of the regions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 21, 2009
    Publication date: March 18, 2010
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname OGAWA
  • Publication number: 20090225173
    Abstract: An image capturing apparatus includes an image capturing unit that captures an image of a subject and generates a captured image; a determination-information storage unit that stores items of determination information, each item of determination information being used to determine whether the captured image includes a corresponding one of target objects; an operation accepting unit that accepts a specifying operation of specifying at least one of the target objects for which the items of determination information are stored; a target-object detecting unit that selects determination information regarding the specified target object from among the items of determination information stored in the determination-information storage means and detects the specified target object in the captured image using the selected determination information; and a recording control unit that causes the captured image generated at the time the specified target object is detected to be recorded.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 4, 2009
    Publication date: September 10, 2009
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20090115864
    Abstract: An imaging apparatus includes the following elements. An operation acceptance unit accepts an operation input to specify an attribute associated with a predetermined object. An imaging unit converts incoming light from a subject into a captured image. An object detection unit detects one or more objects included in the captured image. An attribute determination unit determines an attribute of each detected object. A priority object determination unit determines at least one of the detected objects as a priority object on the basis of the specified attribute and the determined attribute.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 25, 2008
    Publication date: May 7, 2009
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname OGAWA
  • Publication number: 20090087038
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes an object-feature-information storage unit configured to store feature information of a predetermined object; an image inputting unit configured to input an image; an object detecting unit configured to detect an object contained in the input image; an attribute determining unit configured to determine an attribute of the detected object; a feature-point determining unit configured to determine, according to the determined attribute, positions of feature points to be set in the input image; and a similarity calculating unit configured to calculate, by comparing feature information stored in the object-feature-information storage unit to feature information at feature points set in the input image, similarity between an object corresponding to the feature information stored in the object-feature-information storage unit and the detected object.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 22, 2008
    Publication date: April 2, 2009
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Miyuki OKADA, Ryota KOSAKAI, Kaname OGAWA
  • Publication number: 20090074313
    Abstract: The present invention is applicable to video cameras, for example. The present invention encodes input image data D1 on the basis of a true predicted code quantity TRUE PRED(n) calculated by correcting a roughly calculated predicted code quantity ROUGH PRED(n), predicted from the input image data D1, with a correction coefficient ADJUST(n) and sets the correction coefficient ADJUST(n) of a corresponding picture type on the basis of an actual generated code quantity BIT(n).
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 19, 2006
    Publication date: March 19, 2009
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20090046900
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus for processing an image, includes a face detector for detecting an image of a face of a subject contained in a captured image, based on image information of the captured image supplied from an imaging unit, a face feature detector for detecting a face feature contained in the face image, based on image information of the face image detected by the face detector, a normalizer for normalizing the face image detected by the face detector, based on a detected position of the face feature detected by the face feature detector and generating a normalized face image, and a face expression detector for detecting a face expression contained in the face image, based on image information of the normalized face image generated by the normalized.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 13, 2008
    Publication date: February 19, 2009
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname OGAWA
  • Publication number: 20090010501
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus for processing an image including an image of a face includes: a normalization unit configured to normalize the image including the image of a face so that the size of the face becomes a predetermined face size; a detection area setting unit configured to set an area smaller than the image normalized by the normalization unit as a detection area in which a position of a face part of the face is detected; and a detection unit configured to detect the position of the face part in the detection area set by the detection area setting unit.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 16, 2008
    Publication date: January 8, 2009
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20080304749
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes the following elements. An evaluation information storage section stores a plurality of evaluation information sets for determinations as to whether an image subjected to determination is a target image. An image input section inputs an image. A face detection section detects a face included in the input image. A normalization section normalizes a face image that is an image segment including the detected face so that the face image has a predetermined resolution. A feature extraction section extracts a feature amount of the normalized face image. An attribute information generation section makes a determination on the basis of the extracted feature amount and each evaluation information set as to whether the face image is the target image associated with the evaluation information set, and generating an attribute information block related to the face included in the face image as the result of determination.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 16, 2008
    Publication date: December 11, 2008
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Kaname OGAWA
  • Publication number: 20080144890
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus may include an input accepting unit configured to accept an operation input about an input image; a time-series section generating unit configured to accept information specifying a time-series section where frames including a face of a specified person appear in the input image and information specifying a representative frame of the time-series section and to draw display of the time-series section and the representative frame on the basis of the information; and an image control unit configured to allow the time-series section generating unit to draw display of the time-series section in accordance with the operation input.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 28, 2007
    Publication date: June 19, 2008
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Kaname Ogawa
  • Publication number: 20080131073
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus may generate resource information used for playing back image content that can be divided into a plurality of zones. The information processing apparatus may include an image generator generating a still image from each of the plurality of zones, a face processor setting each of the plurality of zones to be a target zone and determining whether a face of a specific character which is determined to continuously appear in at least one zone before the target zone is contained in the still image generated from the target zone, and an information generator specifying, on the basis of a determination result obtained for each of the plurality of zones by the face processor, at least one zone in which the face of the specific character continuously appears as a face zone, and generating information concerning the face zone as one item of the resource information.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 3, 2007
    Publication date: June 5, 2008
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Kaname Ogawa, Hiroshi Jinno, Makoto Yamada, Keiji Kanota