Patents by Inventor Roland Kehl

Roland Kehl 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: 9262852
    Abstract: A system and method for generating a road network based on satellite imagery. Plural pixels corresponding to satellite imagery of a region are obtained. For each of the plural pixels, a probability value corresponding to the probability that the pixel belongs within the road network is calculated. A grayscale image is formed based on the calculated probability values. Plural curves are produced based on the grayscale image, wherein the producing of each curve includes positioning a shape on the grayscale image so that an average intensity of the grayscale image covered by the shape exceeds a preset threshold, moving the shape about the grayscale image while the average intensity is maintained, and tracking the movement of the shape to produce the curve. A planar-connected graph is generated by connecting at least portions of the plural curves. The planar-connected graph corresponds to the road network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Roland Kehl, Matthias Heiler, Gokhan Hasan Bakir
  • Patent number: 9208171
    Abstract: Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to systems and methods for geographically locating images. For example, images from different sources may be associated with different types of location information or simply none at all. In order to reduce inconsistency among images, location information may be gathered for an image using bitmap processing, metadata processing, and information retrieved from where the image was found. This location information can be filtered to remove less reliable or conflicting information. Images may be clustered based on their appearance on an interactive online resource that corresponds to a user-defined event, based on image similarity, and by their appearance in a user photo album. The location information of the images of a cluster is then copied to all of the other images of that cluster.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2015
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Daniel Cotting, Krzysztof Sikora, Roland Kehl, Boris Bluntschli, Wojciech Stanislaw Smietanka, Martin Stefcek
  • Patent number: 8938094
    Abstract: A system and method for generating a road network based on satellite imagery. Plural pixels corresponding to satellite imagery of a region are obtained. For each of the plural pixels, a probability value corresponding to the probability that the pixel belongs within the road network is calculated. A grayscale image is formed based on the calculated probability values. Plural curves are produced based on the grayscale image, wherein the producing of each curve includes positioning a shape on the grayscale image so that an average intensity of the grayscale image covered by the shape exceeds a preset threshold, moving the shape about the grayscale image while the average intensity is maintained, and tracking the movement of the shape to produce the curve. A planar-connected graph is generated by connecting at least portions of the plural curves. The planar-connected graph corresponds to the road network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 13, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 20, 2015
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Roland Kehl, Matthias Heiler, Gokhan Hasan Bakir
  • Patent number: 8774470
    Abstract: A system and method for processing a satellite image to determine a terrain boundary. Pixel data corresponding to a satellite image is obtained. For each pixel within a subset of the pixel data, multiple image features are determined corresponding to texture and color statistics for the pixel and neighboring pixels, based on a feature selection process for selecting discriminative features. An initial set of rules is generated for determining a terrain boundary. Plural image models for applying to the pixel data are created based on the initial set of rules. The plural image models are applied to the pixel data to generate at least one probability map, which represents output of the plural image models and corresponds to different terrains within the satellite image. A binary label mask is generated for the satellite image based on the probability map, and mask indicates segmentations corresponding to the different terrains.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 8, 2014
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Karl Johann Schmidt, Matthias Heiler, Roland Kehl