Patents by Inventor Ming-Yu Liu

Ming-Yu Liu 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).

  • Patent number: 10984286
    Abstract: A style transfer neural network may be used to generate stylized synthetic images, where real images provide the style (e.g., seasons, weather, lighting) for transfer to synthetic images. The stylized synthetic images may then be used to train a recognition neural network. In turn, the trained neural network may be used to predict semantic labels for the real images, providing recognition data for the real images. Finally, the real training dataset (real images and predicted recognition data) and the synthetic training dataset are used by the style transfer neural network to generate stylized synthetic images. The training of the neural network, prediction of recognition data for the real images, and stylizing of the synthetic images may be repeated for a number of iterations. The stylization operation more closely aligns a covariate of the synthetic images to the covariate of the real images, improving accuracy of the recognition neural network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 20, 2021
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: Aysegul Dundar, Ming-Yu Liu, Ting-Chun Wang, John Zedlewski, Jan Kautz
  • Publication number: 20210097691
    Abstract: Apparatuses, systems, and techniques are presented to generate or manipulate digital images. In at least one embodiment, a network is trained to generate modified images including user-selected features.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 30, 2019
    Publication date: April 1, 2021
    Inventor: Ming-Yu Liu
  • Publication number: 20210073612
    Abstract: In at least one embodiment, differentiable neural architecture search and reinforcement learning are combined under one framework to discover network architectures with desired properties such as high accuracy, low latency, or both. In at least one embodiment, an objective function for search based on generalization error prevents the selection of architectures prone to overfitting.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 10, 2019
    Publication date: March 11, 2021
    Inventors: Arash Vahdat, Arun Mohanray Mallya, Ming-Yu Liu, Jan Kautz
  • Publication number: 20210049468
    Abstract: A latent code defined in an input space is processed by the mapping neural network to produce an intermediate latent code defined in an intermediate latent space. The intermediate latent code may be used as appearance vector that is processed by the synthesis neural network to generate an image. The appearance vector is a compressed encoding of data, such as video frames including a person's face, audio, and other data. Captured images may be converted into appearance vectors at a local device and transmitted to a remote device using much less bandwidth compared with transmitting the captured images. A synthesis neural network at the remote device reconstructs the images for display.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 13, 2020
    Publication date: February 18, 2021
    Inventors: Tero Tapani Karras, Samuli Matias Laine, David Patrick Luebke, Jaakko T. Lehtinen, Miika Samuli Aittala, Timo Oskari Aila, Ming-Yu Liu, Arun Mohanray Mallya, Ting-Chun Wang
  • Patent number: 10922793
    Abstract: Missing image content is generated using a neural network. In an embodiment, a high resolution image and associated high resolution semantic label map are generated from a low resolution image and associated low resolution semantic label map. The input image/map pair (low resolution image and associated low resolution semantic label map) lacks detail and is therefore missing content. Rather than simply enhancing the input image/map pair, data missing in the input image/map pair is improvised or hallucinated by a neural network, creating plausible content while maintaining spatio-temporal consistency. Missing content is hallucinated to generate a detailed zoomed in portion of an image. Missing content is hallucinated to generate different variations of an image, such as different seasons or weather conditions for a driving video.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2021
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: Seung-Hwan Baek, Kihwan Kim, Jinwei Gu, Orazio Gallo, Alejandro Jose Troccoli, Ming-Yu Liu, Jan Kautz
  • Publication number: 20210042503
    Abstract: A latent code defined in an input space is processed by the mapping neural network to produce an intermediate latent code defined in an intermediate latent space. The intermediate latent code may be used as appearance vector that is processed by the synthesis neural network to generate an image. The appearance vector is a compressed encoding of data, such as video frames including a person's face, audio, and other data. Captured images may be converted into appearance vectors at a local device and transmitted to a remote device using much less bandwidth compared with transmitting the captured images. A synthesis neural network at the remote device reconstructs the images for display.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 13, 2020
    Publication date: February 11, 2021
    Inventors: Tero Tapani Karras, Samuli Matias Laine, David Patrick Luebke, Jaakko T. Lehtinen, Miika Samuli Aittala, Timo Oskari Aila, Ming-Yu Liu, Arun Mohanray Mallya, Ting-Chun Wang
  • Publication number: 20200410322
    Abstract: Systems and methods that use at least one neural network to infer content of individual frames in a sequence of images and to further infer changes to content in sequence of images over time to determine whether one or more anomalous events are present in sequence of images is described herein.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 26, 2019
    Publication date: December 31, 2020
    Inventors: Milind Naphade, Tingting Huang, Shuo Wang, Xiaodong Yang, Ming-Yu Liu
  • Patent number: 10872399
    Abstract: Photorealistic image stylization concerns transferring style of a reference photo to a content photo with the constraint that the stylized photo should remain photorealistic. Examples of styles include seasons (summer, winter, etc.), weather (sunny, rainy, foggy, etc.), lighting (daytime, nighttime, etc.). A photorealistic image stylization process includes a stylization step and a smoothing step. The stylization step transfers the style of the reference photo to the content photo. A photo style transfer neural network model receives a photorealistic content image and a photorealistic style image and generates an intermediate stylized photorealistic image that includes the content of the content image modified according to the style image. A smoothing function receives the intermediate stylized photorealistic image and pixel similarity data and generates the stylized photorealistic image, ensuring spatially consistent stylizations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 22, 2020
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: Yijun Li, Ming-Yu Liu, Ming-Hsuan Yang, Jan Kautz
  • Publication number: 20200394458
    Abstract: Apparatuses, systems, and techniques to detect object in images including digital representations of those objects. In at least one embodiment, one or more objects are detected in an image based, at least in part, on one or more pseudo-labels corresponding to said one or more objects.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 17, 2019
    Publication date: December 17, 2020
    Inventors: Zhiding Yu, Jason Ren, Xiaodong Yang, Ming-Yu Liu, Jan Kautz
  • Publication number: 20200364303
    Abstract: Apparatuses, systems, and techniques to transfer grammar between sentences. In at least one embodiment, one or more first sentences are translated into one or more second sentences having different grammar using one or more neural networks.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 15, 2019
    Publication date: November 19, 2020
    Inventors: Ming-Yu Liu, Kevin Lin
  • Publication number: 20200334502
    Abstract: Segmentation is the identification of separate objects within an image. An example is identification of a pedestrian passing in front of a car, where the pedestrian is a first object and the car is a second object. Superpixel segmentation is the identification of regions of pixels within an object that have similar properties. An example is identification of pixel regions having a similar color, such as different articles of clothing worn by the pedestrian and different components of the car. A pixel affinity neural network (PAN) model is trained to generate pixel affinity maps for superpixel segmentation. The pixel affinity map defines the similarity of two points in space. In an embodiment, the pixel affinity map indicates a horizontal affinity and vertical affinity for each pixel in the image. The pixel affinity map is processed to identify the superpixels.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 6, 2020
    Publication date: October 22, 2020
    Inventors: Wei-Chih Tu, Ming-Yu Liu, Varun Jampani, Deqing Sun, Ming-Hsuan Yang, Jan Kautz
  • Patent number: 10789678
    Abstract: A superpixel sampling network utilizes a neural network coupled to a differentiable simple linear iterative clustering component to determine pixel-superpixel associations from a set of pixel features output by the neural network. The superpixel sampling network computes updated superpixel centers and final pixel-superpixel associations over a number of iterations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corp.
    Inventors: Varun Jampani, Deqing Sun, Ming-Yu Liu, Jan Kautz
  • Publication number: 20200302250
    Abstract: A generative model can be used for generation of spatial layouts and graphs. Such a model can progressively grow these layouts and graphs based on local statistics, where nodes can represent spatial control points of the layout, and edges can represent segments or paths between nodes, such as may correspond to road segments. A generative model can utilize an encoder-decoder architecture where the encoder is a recurrent neural network (RNN) that encodes local incoming paths into a node and the decoder is another RNN that generates outgoing nodes and edges connecting an existing node to the newly generated nodes. Generation is done iteratively, and can finish once all nodes are visited or another end condition is satisfied. Such a model can generate layouts by additionally conditioning on a set of attributes, giving control to a user in generating the layout.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 20, 2020
    Publication date: September 24, 2020
    Inventors: Hang Chu, Daiqing Li, David Jesus Acuna Marrero, Amlan Kar, Maria Shugrina, Ming-Yu Liu, Antonio Torralba Barriuso, Sanja Fidler
  • Patent number: 10769500
    Abstract: System and method for an active learning system including a sensor obtains data from a scene including a set of images having objects. A memory to store active learning data including an object detector trained for detecting objects in images. A processor in communication with the memory, is configured to detect a semantic class and a location of at least one object in an image selected from the set of images using the object detector to produce a detection metric as a combination of an uncertainty of the object detector about the semantic class of the object in the image (classification) and an uncertainty of the object detector about the location of the object in the image (localization). Using an output interface or a display type device, in communication with the processor, to display the image for human labeling when the detection metric is above a threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2017
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2020
    Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.
    Inventors: Teng-Yok Lee, Chieh-Chi Kao, Pradeep Sen, Ming-Yu Liu
  • Patent number: 10748036
    Abstract: Segmentation is the identification of separate objects within an image. An example is identification of a pedestrian passing in front of a car, where the pedestrian is a first object and the car is a second object. Superpixel segmentation is the identification of regions of pixels within an object that have similar properties An example is identification of pixel regions having a similar color, such as different articles of clothing worn by the pedestrian and different components of the car. A pixel affinity neural network (PAN) model is trained to generate pixel affinity maps for superpixel segmentation. The pixel affinity map defines the similarity of two points in space. In an embodiment, the pixel affinity map indicates a horizontal affinity and vertical affinity for each pixel in the image. The pixel affinity map is processed to identify the superpixels.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 18, 2020
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: Wei-Chih Tu, Ming-Yu Liu, Varun Jampani, Deqing Sun, Ming-Hsuan Yang, Jan Kautz
  • Publication number: 20200242774
    Abstract: A user can create a basic semantic layout that includes two or more regions identified by the user, each region being associated with a semantic label indicating a type of object(s) to be rendered in that region. The semantic layout can be provided as input to an image synthesis network. The network can be a trained machine learning network, such as a generative adversarial network (GAN), that includes a conditional, spatially-adaptive normalization layer for propagating semantic information from the semantic layout to other layers of the network. The synthesis can involve both normalization and de-normalization, where each region of the layout can utilize different normalization parameter values. An image is inferred from the network, and rendered for display to the user. The user can change labels or regions in order to cause a new or updated image to be generated.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 19, 2019
    Publication date: July 30, 2020
    Inventors: Taesung Park, Ming-Yu Liu, Ting-Chun Wang, Junyan Zhu
  • Publication number: 20200242736
    Abstract: A few-shot, unsupervised image-to-image translation (“FUNIT”) algorithm is disclosed that accepts as input images of previously-unseen target classes. These target classes are specified at inference time by only a few images, such as a single image or a pair of images, of an object of the target type. A FUNIT network can be trained using a data set containing images of many different object classes, in order to translate images from one class to another class by leveraging few input images of the target class. By learning to extract appearance patterns from the few input images for the translation task, the network learns a generalizable appearance pattern extractor that can be applied to images of unseen classes at translation time for a few-shot image-to-image translation task.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 29, 2019
    Publication date: July 30, 2020
    Inventors: Ming-Yu Liu, Xun Huang, Tero Karras, Timo Aila, Jaakko Lehtinen
  • Publication number: 20200242771
    Abstract: A user can create a basic semantic layout that includes two or more regions identified by the user, each region being associated with a semantic label indicating a type of object(s) to be rendered in that region. The semantic layout can be provided as input to an image synthesis network. The network can be a trained machine learning network, such as a generative adversarial network (GAN), that includes a conditional, spatially-adaptive normalization layer for propagating semantic information from the semantic layout to other layers of the network. The synthesis can involve both normalization and de-normalization, where each region of the layout can utilize different normalization parameter values. An image is inferred from the network, and rendered for display to the user. The user can change labels or regions in order to cause a new or updated image to be generated.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 25, 2019
    Publication date: July 30, 2020
    Inventors: Taesung Park, Ming-Yu Liu, Ting-Chun Wang, Junyan Zhu
  • Publication number: 20200204822
    Abstract: A method, computer readable medium, and system are disclosed for action video generation. The method includes the steps of generating, by a recurrent neural network, a sequence of motion vectors from a first set of random variables and receiving, by a generator neural network, the sequence of motion vectors and a content vector sample. The sequence of motion vectors and the content vector sample are sampled by the generator neural network to produce a video clip.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 6, 2020
    Publication date: June 25, 2020
    Inventors: Ming-Yu Liu, Xiaodong Yang, Jan Kautz, Sergey Tulyakov
  • Publication number: 20200160178
    Abstract: In various examples, a generative model is used to synthesize datasets for use in training a downstream machine learning model to perform an associated task. The synthesized datasets may be generated by sampling a scene graph from a scene grammar—such as a probabilistic grammar—and applying the scene graph to the generative model to compute updated scene graphs more representative of object attribute distributions of real-world datasets. The downstream machine learning model may be validated against a real-world validation dataset, and the performance of the model on the real-world validation dataset may be used as an additional factor in further training or fine-tuning the generative model for generating the synthesized datasets specific to the task of the downstream machine learning model.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 15, 2019
    Publication date: May 21, 2020
    Inventors: Amlan Kar, Aayush Prakash, Ming-Yu Liu, David Jesus Acuna Marrero, Antonio Torralba Barriuso, Sanja Fidler