Patents Examined by Barry Stellrecht
  • Patent number: 5233668
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for discriminating aggregation patterns includes detection of an image of the aggregation pattern and dividing the image into a plurality of image line data using a photoelectric element. The image line data defines an image waveform and includes a maximum image value. High and low image levels are defined based on the maximum image value. These high and low image levels are used to determine first and second areas of the aggregation pattern image, which first and second areas respectively include image values at least as large as the high and low image levels. An area difference between the first and second areas and a level difference between the high and low image levels are then calculated, along with a ratio of the area difference to the level difference. The calculated area difference and ratio are then compared with a predetermined reference value to discriminate whether or not the aggregation pattern is positive.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 15, 1991
    Date of Patent: August 3, 1993
    Assignees: Suzuki Motor Corporation, Dainabot Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Yasuhiko Yokomori, Toshiyuki Furuta, Naoki Ozawa, Masato Ohta, Hideo Suda, Shogo Kida, Ryohei Matsumoto, Kunio Kurata, Yoshinobu Kubo, Yoshiharu Matsuoka, Masahiro Kato
  • Patent number: 5224173
    Abstract: A current applicant for a government benefit presents a fingerprint signature to a large data bank to determine if his signature is already in the data bank, to thus indicate fraud. His fingerprint is rapidly machine correlated with the fingerprints of prior approved applicants and a number of close matches are thereafter visually examined by a human operator to definitively determine whether the current applicant's fingerprint is already in the data bank. However, a coarse biometric index (CBI) of the current applicant is first compared with all CBIs of approved applicants and only a tiny percentage of positive CBI matches result in the correlation of fingerprints and visual examination by the human operator, thereby to save huge amounts of human matching time and cost. The result is reliable and economical scanning of huge data banks such as the Social Security data base. The CBI can display facial images and eliminate fingerprints altogether if desired.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 1991
    Date of Patent: June 29, 1993
    Inventors: Roger J. Kuhns, Robert L. Nathans
  • Patent number: 5212569
    Abstract: The light beam scanning apparatus of the present invention which is capable of recording or reading an image of high quality has a memory unit that stores datum representing the intensity of light in association with scanning density and a selector that selects said light intensity data from said memory unit according to a particular scanning density.Therefore, when the scanning density is changed by altering the transport speed in sub-scanning direction, the intensity of the light beam emitted from a light source such as a laser is adjusted by the data which is selected by the selector from the memory unit according to the scanning density.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 1992
    Date of Patent: May 18, 1993
    Assignee: Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Norihisa Takada
  • Patent number: 5202936
    Abstract: A method for generating a low-resolution gray-scale pattern representing a high-resolution original character image. A sampling pattern is generated having plural sampling windows arranged in columns and rows, the number of columns and rows being determined by the resolution of the gray-scale pattern. The sampling pattern is sequentially positioned at plural positions separated by a predetermined distance along a column direction and a row direction on the original character image to count, at each position, the total number of black pels in predetermined portions of the rows of the sampling pattern and the total number of black pels in predetermined portions of the columns of the sampling pattern. The total number of black pels counted at each of the positions is compared to detect a position at which the largest total number of black pels in the column is detected and at which the largest total number of black pels in the row portions is detected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 1991
    Date of Patent: April 13, 1993
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Yoshitaka Kobiyama
  • Patent number: 5202928
    Abstract: An image processing method for matching edges detected in images of the same objects in a three-dimensional scene which are taken simultaneously by two or more image pick-up devices at different positions, in which the boundary segments on the edges are classified into apparently real segments, apparently imaginary segments or undefined segments, a planar surface is found for each boundary which has all apparently real segments and no apparently imaginary segment on it by using the information of the points of occlusion, the surface is regarded as the real surface in the case where there is only one surface which has no segment under it, so that surface information and the distance information at arbitrary points on the real surface are obtained.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 21, 1989
    Date of Patent: April 13, 1993
    Assignees: Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, Sanyo Electric Co.
    Inventors: Fumiaki Tomita, Kazuhide Sugimoto, Hironobu Takahashi
  • Patent number: 5196946
    Abstract: A digital video compression system and an apparatus implementing this system are disclosed. Specifically, matrices of pixels in the RGB signal format are converted into YUV representation, including a step of selectively sampling the chrominance components. The signals are then subjected to a discrete cosine transform (DCT). A circuitry implementing the DCT in a pipelined architecture is provided. A quantization step eliminates DCT coefficients having amplitude below a set of preset thresholds. The video signal is further compressed by coding the elements of the quantized matrices in a zig-zag manner. This representation is further compressed by Huffman codes. Decompression of the signal is substantially the reverse of compression steps. The inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) may be implemented by the DCT circuit. Circuits for implementing RGB to YUV conversion, DCT, quantization, coding and their decompression counterparts are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 1990
    Date of Patent: March 23, 1993
    Assignee: C-Cube Microsystems
    Inventors: Alexandre Balkanski, Steve Purcell, James Kirkpatrick
  • Patent number: 5193122
    Abstract: A simple technique for determining and indicating, in real times as an image is scanned, the presence of halftones within a page. in brief, the technique contemplates monitoring a pixel stream, typically on a line basis, determining the proportion of pixel transitions (relative to the overall number of pixel intervals), and controlling the process based on this information. In one embodiment, a numerical value representing such a proportion is compared to a threshold, and a value in excess of the threshold is taken to signify the presence of halftone regions. Based on this, special processing for halftones is enabled or special processing for non-halftone regions is disabled. In a specific hardware embodiment, the pixel monitoring circuitry includes a transition detector (50), an up/down activity counter (52), a threshold selector (55), and a counter controller (57).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 1990
    Date of Patent: March 9, 1993
    Assignee: Xerox Corporation
    Inventors: Robert P. Kowalski, Dan S. Bloomberg
  • Patent number: 5191621
    Abstract: To determine the asymmetry of the line spread function in digital imaging systems, two modulation-transfer functions are calculated by differentiation of the edge spread function followed by Fourier transformation. To that end a method is used in which a radiation intensity distribution spatially modulated by a series of equidistant elongated block elements in a test object is incident upon an input screen of a detector which is connected to a digital data processing device for storing detector signal values in memory locations which correspond to picture elements of the input screen.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 3, 1991
    Date of Patent: March 2, 1993
    Assignee: U.S. Philips Corp.
    Inventor: Marius Brok
  • Patent number: 5189711
    Abstract: A method is described for automatic detection of a large class of industrial parts, whch is faster and more reliable than current methods. Many industrial parts have visible outlines which are either circular or elliptical or contain segments of these. Circles are seen as ellipses unless viewed head-on. Thus the ability to detect ellipses in an image of an industrial part, quickly and reliably, can be of great help in identification of this part by a robotic assembly process. In our method one first scans the image electronically by a video camera. When a scan line goes through an image of some object one can detect the edges of this image by detecting changes in the light intensity at these edges. For an object of the shape of a conic section (e.g. an ellipse), generally two edges will appear on each scan line and the midpoints between them will all lie on one straight line. This straight line can be detected with Hough's method.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 1991
    Date of Patent: February 23, 1993
    Inventors: Isaac Weiss, Azriel Rosenfeld
  • Patent number: 5187754
    Abstract: A method for generating a composite terrain map, proceeding from an overview taken at relatively high altitude and photographs taken at relatively low altitudes, generates a composite terrain map that is relatively free of step irradiance variations where the photographs taken at relatively low altitudes are splined. Digitized representations of orthographic projections of the overview and each of the lower-altitude photographs, as regularly sampled in two orthogonal dimensions and referred to a common spatial frame of reference, are generated. The digitized representations of the orthographic projections of each of said photographs taken at relatively low altitudes are hig-pass spatially filtered, to generate digitized high-spatial-frequency responses. The digitized high-spatial-frequency responses are splined to generate a digitized high-spatial-frequency response for the composite terrain map.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 1991
    Date of Patent: February 16, 1993
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Bena L. Currin, Aiman A. Abdel-Malek, Richard I. Hartley
  • Patent number: 5181255
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for differentiating and extracting handwritten annotations and machine printed text in an image. The method provides for the use of morphological operations, preferably at reduced scale, to eliminate for example, the handwritten annotations from an image. A separation mask is produced that, for example, covers all the image pixels corresponding to machine printed text, and none of the image pixels corresponding to handwritten or handprinted annotations. The separation mask is used in conjunction with the original image to produce separate handwritten annotations and machine printed text images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 1990
    Date of Patent: January 19, 1993
    Assignee: Xerox Corporation
    Inventor: Dan S. Bloomberg
  • Patent number: 5179599
    Abstract: Disclosed is a system that converts a scanned image of a complex document, wherein each pixel is represented by a gray scale level, into a bi-level image where text has been preserved and separated from the background. The system subdivides the scanned image into cells, and then creates histograms of the gray scale levels of the pixels in the cells. It creates matrices of the runs of dark pixels within the cells, and examines the runs to determine the extent of connected components. It computes the percentage of runs of each length, and computes the average gray scale level of runs of each length for the document image. It determines peaks in each of the histograms, and determines the width of the first peak within each histogram. The system uses this information to set a gray scale level threshold used to create the bi-level image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 1992
    Date of Patent: January 12, 1993
    Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Company
    Inventor: Lynn J. Formanek
  • Patent number: 5177797
    Abstract: An image data coding system, wherein an image data in a bit map form is divided into first and second groups, pixels in each group of which are distributed over the whole area of the image data in the bit map form. First and second coders respectively code the first and second groups of image data into first and second groups of coded image data. The first and second groups of image data in the original image data are respectively input into first and second memories, respectively. Blocks of the first group of image data are supplied to the first coder at first times, respectively, and blocks of the second group of image data are supplied to the second coder at second times, respectively. Boundaries of the blocks in the first group of image data are located in different positions from boundaries of the blocks in the second group of image data, and the first times are different from the second times.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 1990
    Date of Patent: January 5, 1993
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Yuji Takenaka, Yoshitsugu Nishizawa, Takahiro Hosokawa, Yuji Mori, Hideki Miyasaka
  • Patent number: 5173945
    Abstract: A process and apparatus are provided for estimating the movement of a moving object relative to a reference object. A symbol is formed on the moving object, the symbol having a rectilinear contour with at least two parallel straight lines. The symbol is observed from the reference object and the movement is determined by means of successive projections along two axes having a relative rotary movement with respect to the recorded image of the symbol. The rotary motion is preferably at such a rate that it does not interfere with obtaining images of the straight lines.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 1990
    Date of Patent: December 22, 1992
    Assignee: Aerospatiale Societe Nationale Industrielle
    Inventors: Bernard Pieters, Patrice Deniau, Jean-Pierre Merle, Francis Devos, Christophe Coquelet, Patrick Garda
  • Patent number: 5172421
    Abstract: Flaws in an optical fiber are automatically classified as to type by obtaining separate camera images of the fiber illuminated at different angles, and analyzing the images to detect the presence of optical patterns that are characteristic of each different type of flaw. Nominal and actual fiber boundaries are preferably first determined, preferably using noncoherent light, and an initial classification made according to the nature of the differential between the two. An analysis under a side light beam can then be performed to distinguish flaws such as splices, hard versus soft external debris, bubbles, internal debris and uncured buffer. The system reverts to a boundary light analysis to characterize a splice once it has been detected. The boundary analysis is preferably performed with a combination of diffused backlighting transmitted through the fiber, and reflected frontlighting at an angle of about 15.degree.-30.degree. to the fiber axis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 1991
    Date of Patent: December 15, 1992
    Assignee: Hughes Aircraft Company
    Inventors: Alan M. Nakamura, Teresa M. Silberberg, Michael R. S. Vince, Theodore Carmely
  • Patent number: 5164994
    Abstract: A system (82) and method for locating features in an image. In the preferred embodiments, the present invention accepts as input a tilted view X-ray image of a PC board (10), as well as expected locations of solder joints (18) in the PC board (10). The present invention then determines the actual center locations (32) of these solder joints (18) by defining windows within the image and checking individual areas within the window, to see if they fall below a predetermined threshold. In addition, the system (82) determines if these pixels are connected to other pixels that have been previously determined to be part of the solder joint (18). Finally, the system (82) determines the center of the group of pixels determined to be part of the solder joint and displays the coordinate location of this center.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 1989
    Date of Patent: November 17, 1992
    Assignee: Hughes Aircraft Company
    Inventor: Michael W. Bushroe
  • Patent number: 5157734
    Abstract: A method for accurately placing a surface mounting device (SMD) with a vacuum nozzle analyzes a video image of the SMD to locate the SMD leads and compute corrections. The positions of the lead centers are processed to determine the translation and rotation of the SMD relative to a desired location. The position of the SMD centroid is transformed from an image-referenced coordinate system to a space-referenced coordinate system. The SMD rotation relative to a desired orientation is derived from the slope of a line drawn through colinear SMD leads.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 1989
    Date of Patent: October 20, 1992
    Assignee: Industrial Technology Research Institute
    Inventors: Inn-Ming Chen, Yeu-Hwa Shyy, Jeng-Chang Yeh, Yunghsueh Chao
  • Patent number: 5155587
    Abstract: A color information converting device for use in a color image recorder for processing image density signals each being representative of a particular color-separated image density to produce a record density signal representative of the record density of black, cyan, magenta or yellow. The device adds an undercolor to an image easily with a simple and inexpensive construction and produces a record density signal representative of full black or skeleton black also easily with a simple and inexpensive construction. In a full-color record mode, image density signals are transformed into record density signals by constants which are associated with the values of the image density signals while, in a monocolor record mode, the former is transformed into the latter by constants which are not related to the values of the image density signals. This implements combined full-color and monocolor recording which is excellent in color-reproducibility.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 1990
    Date of Patent: October 13, 1992
    Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.
    Inventor: Takanori Itoh
  • Patent number: 5144684
    Abstract: A parallel image processing apparatus includes (1) a light diffusing layer, (2) a photoelectric conversion layer which receives diffused light from the diffusion layer, and (3) an edge detection layer which receives signals from conversion elements in the conversion layer, and generates edge information which defines the edge of object(s) imaged on the light diffusing layer. The conversion layer includes pairs of conversion elements, the pairs having a center element and a peripheral element surrounding it. Signals from one or more center elements are summed, the sum being differentially amplified with a sum of signals from one or more peripheral elements to arrive at an edge signal. Edge signals may be used to differentiate among characters, pictures or photographs, and a blank images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 1990
    Date of Patent: September 1, 1992
    Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.
    Inventors: Toshio Inada, Yukio Ogura, Junichi Kitabayashi
  • Patent number: 5142592
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for detection of parallel edges in image processing systems is shown. A video source producing an image which is operated upon by Laplacian of Gaussian operator to produce an LOG image within which sign changes are detected to produce a zero crossing edge detected image. A vector gradient field of the LOG image is computed and subjected to a gradient field smoothing operation to produce a smoothed gradient field. The smoothed gradient field is examined to detect scaler minima within the field and the results thereof used to compute parallelism strength in accordance with preestablished criteria to generate a parallelism line image which is printed using a conventional printer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 1990
    Date of Patent: August 25, 1992
    Inventor: Keith E. Moler