Abstract: This disclosure provides a self-contained imaging device that takes digital photographs of portions of documents (such as photos or photo albums) instead of scanning those images. The imaging device uses a lens to zoom in on specific portions of the document that represent images that are to be digitized. Generally speaking, disclosed embodiments utilize a physical device having a housing, a location for retaining or holding an image to be imaged, such as a platen or image conveyance mechanism, a light source and the imaging system (which can be a digital camera). The disclosed device camera provides a low-cost mechanism that can at-once capture a high resolution image without the delays associated with most scanners.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus include computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, including a method for processing images. A structure provides a light sources configured to illuminate a target area. Illumination is controlled in a sequence over a first time period. At a given point in time, light sources are powered to enable illumination of the target area. An image of a target object is captured from a single reference location. The captured image is evaluated including processing the evaluated images on a pixel by pixel basis to produce a single composite image having respective pixel values derived from the evaluated captured images. The target object is 3D scanned to determine height information for a surface of a target on the target area. The height information is used to flatten respective pixels of the composite image. The composite image is provided after the flattening of the respective pixels.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus include computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, including a method for processing images. A structure provides a light sources configured to illuminate a target area. Illumination is controlled in a sequence over a first time period. At a given point in time, light sources are powered to enable illumination of the target area. An image of a target object is captured from a single reference location. The captured image is evaluated including processing the evaluated images on a pixel by pixel basis to produce a single composite image having respective pixel values derived from the evaluated captured images. The target object is 3D scanned to determine height information for a surface of a target on the target area. The height information is used to flatten respective pixels of the composite image. The composite image is provided after the flattening of the respective pixels.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus include computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, including a method for processing images. A structure provides a light sources configured to illuminate a target area. Illumination is controlled in a sequence over a first time period. At a given point in time, light sources are powered to enable illumination of the target area. An image of a target object is captured from a single reference location. The captured image is evaluated including processing the evaluated images on a pixel by pixel basis to produce a single composite image having respective pixel values derived from the evaluated captured images. The target object is 3D scanned to determine height information for a surface of a target on the target area. The height information is used to flatten respective pixels of the composite image. The composite image is provided after the flattening of the respective pixels.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus include computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, including a method for processing images. A structure provides a light sources configured to illuminate a target area. Illumination is controlled in a sequence over a first time period. At a given point in time, light sources are powered to enable illumination of the target area. An image of a target object is captured from a single reference location. The captured image is evaluated including processing the evaluated images on a pixel by pixel basis to produce a single composite image having respective pixel values derived from the evaluated captured images. The target object is 3D scanned to determine height information for a surface of a target on the target area. The height information is used to flatten respective pixels of the composite image. The composite image is provided after the flattening of the respective pixels.

Abstract: This disclosure provides a self-contained imaging device that takes digital photographs of portions of documents (such as photos or photoalbums) instead of scanning those images. The imaging device uses a lens to zoom in on specific portions of the document that represent images that are to be digitized. Generally speaking, disclosed embodiments utilize a physical device having a housing, a location for retaining or holding an image to be imaged, such as a platen or image conveyance mechanism, a light source and the imaging system (which can be a digital camera). The disclosed device camera provides a low-cost mechanism that can at-once capture a high resolution image without the delays associated with most scanners.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for producing video content. The method includes acquiring video data from a source. If the video data is not digitized, then the video data is digitized. The method includes generating scene indexes for the video data including a representative still image for each scene and combining the video data and scene indexes along with a media player on a video disc. The video player is operable to play the video data in accordance with the scene indexes including playing a scene from the video data on a client computer while displaying the representative stills for other of the scenes available for display on the video disc.

Abstract: This disclosure provides a self-contained imaging device that takes digital photographs of portions of documents (such as photos or photoalbums) instead of scanning those images. The imaging device uses a lens to zoom in on specific portions of the document that represent images that are to be digitized. Generally speaking, disclosed embodiments utilize a physical device having a housing, a location for retaining or holding an image to be imaged, such as a platen or image conveyance mechanism, a light source and the imaging system (which can be a digital camera). The disclosed device camera provides a low-cost mechanism that can at-once capture a high resolution image without the delays associated with most scanners.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for producing video content. The method includes acquiring video data from a source. If the video data is not digitized, then the video data is digitized. The method includes generating scene indexes for the video data including a representative still image for each scene and combining the video data and scene indexes along with a media player on a video disc. The video player is operable to play the video data in accordance with the scene indexes including playing a scene from the video data on a client computer while displaying the representative stills for other of the scenes available for display on the video disc.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for producing video content. The method includes acquiring video data from a source. If the video data is not digitized, then the video data is digitized. The method includes generating scene indexes for the video data including a representative still image for each scene and combining the video data and scene indexes along with a media player on a video disc. The video player is operable to play the video data in accordance with the scene indexes including playing a scene from the video data on a client computer while displaying the representative stills for other of the scenes available for display on the video disc.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for producing video content. The method includes acquiring video data from a source. If the video data is not digitized, then the video data is digitized. The method includes generating scene indexes for the video data including a representative still image for each scene and combining the video data and scene indexes along with a media player on a video disc. The video player is operable to play the video data in accordance with the scene indexes including playing a scene from the video data on a client computer while displaying the representative stills for other of the scenes available for display on the video disc.

Abstract: Process-response statistical modeling of visual images can be used in determining similarity between visual images. Evaluation of the content of visual images—and, in particular, image similarity determinations—can be used in effecting a variety of interactions (e.g., searching, indexing, grouping, summarizing, annotating, keyframing) with a collection of visual images.

Abstract: Process-response statistical modeling of visual images can be used in determining similarity between visual images. Evaluation of the content of visual images—and, in particular, image similarity determinations—can be used in effecting a variety of interactions (e.g., indexing, grouping, summarizing, annotating, searching keyframing) with a collection of visual images.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for producing video content. The method includes acquiring video data from a source. If the video data is not digitized, then the video data is digitized. The method includes generating scene indexes for the video data including a representative still image for each scene and combining the video data and scene indexes along with a media player on a video disc. The video player is operable to play the video data in accordance with the scene indexes including playing a scene from the video data on a client computer while displaying the representative stills for other of the scenes available for display on the video disc.

Abstract: The invention identifies a blank segment (i.e., a segment that does not correspond to recorded visual content) in a set of visual recording data. The invention identifies a blank segment using a blank frame detector that is adapted to evaluate a frame of visual recording data to determine whether the frame of visual recording data is a blank frame, and a blank segment detector that is adapted to evaluate a characteristic of a group of frames of visual recording data to determine whether the group of frames of visual recording data is a blank segment comprising a plurality of blank frames. Identification of a blank segment can be used to, for example, decide whether to terminate digitization of a set of analog visual recording data.

Abstract: A visual recording can be automatically edited in a manner that creates a summary of the visual recording in which only content that is of unacceptably low quality and/or very little or no interest is eliminated, thereby enabling the original unsummarized visual recording to be discarded if desired. Additionally, a summary of a visual recording can be automatically produced in accordance with a format template that imposes a certain overall style to the visual recording summary. Further, a viewer of a visual recording can be enabled to provide input which can affect the visual recording content included in an automatically generated summary of the visual recording.

Abstract: The invention aligns two wide-bandwidth, high resolution data streams, in a manner that retains the full bandwidth of the data streams, by using magnitude-only spectrograms as inputs into the cross-correlation and sampling the cross-correlation at a coarse sampling rate that is the final alignment quantization period. The invention also enables selection of stable and distinctive audio segments for cross-correlation by evaluating the energy in local audio segments and the variance in energy among nearby audio segments.

Abstract: The invention automatically evaluates the quality of the visual images in a collection of visual images and selects one or more visual image(s) from the collection based on the evaluation of the quality of the visual images.

Abstract: An adaptive filter is used to filter a target version of a visual image that is produced by processing an original version of the visual image, the characteristics of the adaptive filter being determined in accordance with one or more characteristics of the original version of the visual image. The orientation and/or strength of filtering of the adaptive filter can be adjusted based on local properties of the original image, which can enable the adaptive filter to avoid introducing blurring across true edges in an image.

Abstract: The invention aligns two wide-bandwidth, high resolution data streams, in a manner that retains the full bandwidth of the data streams, by using magnitude-only spectrograms as inputs into the cross-correlation and sampling the cross-correlation at a coarse sampling rate that is the final alignment quantization period. The invention also enables selection of stable and distinctive audio segments for cross-correlation by evaluating the energy in local audio segments and the variance in energy among nearby audio segments.