Patents Examined by Joseph Ustaris
  • Patent number: 10129490
    Abstract: A thermal imaging system includes a thermal imaging sensor configured to capture thermal images of assets in an environment, a non-thermal imaging sensor coupled to the thermal sensor and being configured to capture non-thermal images of the assets, an image alignment system, an image correction system, and a controller configured to control operation of the thermal and non-thermal imaging sensors, the image alignment system, and the image correction system. The controller is configured to determine, using the image correction system, that data representative of a reflective surface is present in a present thermal view of a particular asset, cause the thermal and non-thermal imaging sensors to capture pose-corrected images, generate pose corrected thermal and non-thermal images, with at least one having corrected thermal data corresponding to a location of the reflective surface, and associate the corrected thermal data with the at least one reflective surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2018
    Assignee: HEMA IMAGING LLC
    Inventor: Erik Beall
  • Patent number: 10116884
    Abstract: A thermal imaging system includes a thermal imaging sensor adapted to capture any number of thermal images of any number of assets in an environment, a non-thermal imaging sensor coupled to the thermal sensor and being adapted to capture any number of non-thermal images of the assets, an asset identification system adapted to identify a particular asset from the assets, an image alignment system, and a controller adapted to control operation of the thermal imaging sensor, the non-thermal imaging sensor, the asset identification system, and the image alignment system. Upon identifying the particular asset via the asset identification system, the controller is adapted to control the image alignment system to adjust an orientation of the thermal image and the non-thermal image and cause the thermal imaging sensor and the non-thermal imaging sensor to capture the image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2018
    Assignee: HEMA IMAGING LLC
    Inventors: Erik Beall, Marius Popescu
  • Patent number: 10116885
    Abstract: A thermal imaging system includes a thermal imaging sensor configured to capture thermal images of assets in an environment, a non-thermal imaging sensor coupled to the thermal sensor and being configured to capture non-thermal images of the assets, an image alignment system configured to adjust an orientation of a present thermal view of the particular asset and a present non-thermal view of the particular asset, a controller configured to control operation of the thermal imaging sensor, the non-thermal imaging sensor, and the image alignment system, and a remote computing device having a change detection system and being configured to receive the captured thermal and non-thermal images of the particular asset. The controller is configured to cause the sensors to capture thermal and non-thermal images. Upon receiving the captured thermal and non-thermal images, the change detection system is configured to detect a change in at least one characteristic of the asset.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2018
    Assignee: HEMA IMAGING LLC
    Inventor: Erik Beall
  • Patent number: 10104391
    Abstract: Methods and systems for improving coding efficiency of video. In one aspect of the disclosure, efficiency may be improved by trimming candidate motion vectors used for spatial and/or temporal prediction. In another aspect of the disclosure, efficiency may be improved by choosing selective combinations of syntax elements from video data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 1, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 16, 2018
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Yeping Su, Christopher A. Segall
  • Patent number: 10075634
    Abstract: A method and system for generating a surround view are provided. The method may include: establishing a surround surface; obtaining a plurality of images of surroundings; and projecting the images onto the surround surface based on a projection relationship between points on the surround surface and pixels on the images to generate a surround view, where the projection relationship may change with heights of the points on the surround surface. An improved projection effect may be obtained.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 11, 2018
    Assignee: Harman International Industries, Incorporated
    Inventors: Jia He, Norman Weyrich
  • Patent number: 10051195
    Abstract: An apparatus for acquiring a differential image includes: an image acquiring unit acquiring a first image including environment light from an image sensor of a camera and infrared polarized light from an illuminating unit and a second image including horizontal polarized light of the environment light; an image correcting unit correcting brightnesses of background areas of the first and second images; and a differential image generating unit generating a differential image between the first and second images of which the brightnesses of the background areas are corrected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 14, 2018
    Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company
    Inventors: Hee Jin Ro, Seok Beom Lee, Dong Hee Seok, Sung Min Park
  • Patent number: 10037473
    Abstract: A vehicle exterior environment recognition apparatus includes a computer configured to serve as a vehicle identifier, a candidate identifier, a cover identifier, and a lamp determiner. The vehicle identifier identifies, from an image captured by an image-capturing unit, a preceding vehicle and a vehicle region occupied by the preceding vehicle. The candidate identifier identifies, as a light-emission source candidate, a candidate determinable as a light-emission source in the identified vehicle region. The cover identifier identifies a cover in the identified vehicle region. The cover covers the light-emission source. The lamp determiner determines whether the light-emission source candidate is a lighted lamp, based on a lighted-state determination threshold and one of the number of pixels and pixel area of the identified light-emission source candidate. The lighted-state determination threshold is based on one of the number of pixels and pixel area of the cover identified by the cover identifier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 31, 2018
    Assignee: SUBARU CORPORATION
    Inventor: Seisuke Kasaoki
  • Patent number: 10038916
    Abstract: Encoding and decoding architectures for 3D video delivery are described, such as 2D compatible 3D video delivery and frame compatible 3D video delivery. The architectures include pre-processing stages to pre-process the output of a base layer video encoder and/or decoder and input the pre-processed output into an enhancement layer video encoder and/or decoder of one or more enhancement layers. Multiplexing methods of how to combine the base and enhancement layer videos are also described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 11, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 31, 2018
    Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Alexandros Tourapis, Peshala V. Pahalawatta, Athanasios Leontaris, Kevin J. Stec, Walter J. Husak
  • Patent number: 10021368
    Abstract: A mobile terminal including a front body including a touch screen located on a front side of the mobile terminal; a rear body located at a rear side of the mobile terminal, the rear body including at least one hole; a bracket accommodated between the front body and the rear body, the bracket formed as a unibody, the bracket including third and fourth holes corresponding to the at least one hole; a first camera coupled with the bracket, the first camera positioned at the third hole of the bracket; a second camera coupled with the bracket, the second camera positioned at the fourth hole of the bracket; a camera flash positioned between the first and second cameras; a main printed circuit board (PCB) including electronic components and electronic circuits for operation of the mobile terminal; a camera PCB coupled with the first and second cameras; and a connector extended from the camera PCB and electrically connected to the main PCB.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2018
    Assignee: LG ELECTRONICS INC.
    Inventors: Ramchan Woo, Byungjoon Kim, Jinho Jang, Chiyoung Kim, Jaeyeol Kim
  • Patent number: 10018703
    Abstract: A method for enforcing traffic signal compliance includes acquiring a series of temporal related image frames including a target area. Each image frame includes pixel data representative of the target area. The method includes generating one or more motion vectors between two or more of the image frames. The motion vectors are the type produced by compressing the pixel data associated with the two or more image frames. The method includes associating a cluster of motion vectors with a vehicle. The method further includes tracking a position of the vehicle across the two or more image frames. Using the tracking results, the method includes determining whether the vehicle stops in the target area. For the vehicle being determined as not stopping, the method includes signaling an occurrence of noncompliance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 13, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2018
    Assignee: CONDUENT BUSINESS SERVICES, LLC
    Inventors: Edgar A. Bernal, Orhan Bulan, Robert P. Loce
  • Patent number: 10009647
    Abstract: A system transmits human interface data (HID) as ancillary data to a television receiver over white space. Content on a user mobile device may be wirelessly displayed on an external display device. It may be desirable to have user interactions with the mobile device (such as controls for video games) displayed on the external display device in a manner that does not suffer from the latency of standard video being set to the display device. The HID may be captured and processed separately from the video data. The HID may be formed into a transport stream for transmission over white space. The HID may be included as ancillary data in the transport stream. Timestamps may be used to coordinate the transmission of the HID as well as its processing when received by a television receiver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 26, 2018
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventor: Vijayalakshmi R. Raveendran
  • Patent number: 9992505
    Abstract: An image decoding method for decoding a bitstream including a coded signal resulting from coding slices into which an image is partitioned and each of which includes coding units, includes decoding the coded signal, wherein each of the slices is either a normal slice having, in a slice header, information used for another slice or a dependent slice which is decoded using information included in a slice header of another slice, the image includes rows each of which includes coding units, and when the normal slice starts at a position other than the beginning of the first row, the second row immediately following the first row does not start with the dependent slice.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 10, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2018
    Assignee: Velos Media, LLC
    Inventors: Semih Esenlik, Matthias Narroschke, Thomas Wedi
  • Patent number: 9967563
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for loop filter processing of boundary pixels across a block boundary aligned with a slice or tile boundary is disclosed. Embodiments according to the present invention use a parameter of a neighboring slice or tile for loop filter processing across slice or tile boundaries according to a flag indicating whether cross slice or tile loop filter processing is allowed not. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the parameter is a quantization parameter corresponding to a neighboring slice or tile, and the quantization parameter is used for filter decision in deblocking filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 8, 2018
    Assignee: HFI INNOVATION INC.
    Inventors: Chih-Wei Hsu, Chia-Yang Tsai, Yu-Wen Huang
  • Patent number: 9900524
    Abstract: Described herein is an IR camera that can prepare a report on-board the camera in a standard file format that is substantially universally readable by a number of receiving devices, including but not limited to computers. The report preferably includes at least one IR image, at least one visual image and a table that can be populated with the output of any of the camera's measurement functions or any parametric information (time, date, emissivity, background temperature, GPS location, etc.). The report may also include text, voice, and/or visual/graphical comments and recommendations. The comments may be added directly to the report or hyperlinked to the report.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2018
    Assignee: FLIR Systems, Inc.
    Inventors: Brent Lammert, Phil Pollard
  • Patent number: 9883172
    Abstract: Various arrangements for using an active 3D signal to create passive 3D images are presented. An active 3D frame may be received. The active 3D frame may comprise a first perspective image and a second perspective image. The first perspective image may be representative of a different perspective than the second perspective image. The first perspective image may be tinted with a first color. The second perspective image may be tinted with a second color different from the first color. The first perspective image tinted with the first color may be displayed. The second perspective image tinted with the second color may be displayed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 3, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2018
    Assignee: EchoStar Technologies L.L.C.
    Inventors: Joshua Engelbert, Barrett Thur
  • Patent number: 9883145
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, an onboard camera automatic calibration apparatus includes at least a road surface point selection unit, an amount-of-rotation-around-Z-axis calculation unit and a coordinate rotation correction unit. The road surface point selection unit selects multiple points not less than three on a road surface in a predetermined image among the multiple images obtained by an onboard camera and selects multiple combinations of two points from among the multiple points. The amount-of-rotation-around-Z-axis calculation unit determines, in a camera coordinate system with an optical axis as a Z axis, an amount of rotation around the Z axis such that the road surface is parallel to an X axis, based on the multiple combinations and motion vectors. The coordinate rotation correction unit performs rotation correction around the Z axis for the images obtained by the onboard camera based on the determined amount of rotation around the Z axis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2018
    Assignee: TOSHIBA ALPINE AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Kiyoyuki Kawai
  • Patent number: 9872614
    Abstract: A brightness information generation unit 13 generates brightness profiles, serving as brightness information, from each Sobel image formed by an image transformation unit. A feature point detection unit 14 extracts feature points from the generated brightness information. In this case, maximum points (hereinafter, referred to as “peaks”) in the brightness profiles generated from the Sobel image are determined and detected as feature points. A layered structure identification unit 15 identifies the kind of the boundary of each layer or that of the layer in the retina. To identify the kind of the layer or boundary, brightness values in an area between the peaks are obtained from a median image and the layered structure in the area between the peaks is determined, thus identifying the kind of the layer or boundary corresponding to each peak on the basis of information indicating the determination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 23, 2018
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Yuta Nakano
  • Patent number: 9871959
    Abstract: Example techniques are disclosed for altering trail camera settings when deployed. For example, settings relating to triggering functionality, time lapse functionality, image resolution, motion sensor sensitivity, flash intensity, and other camera functions can be altered. The settings can be altered based on environmental conditions such as weather and ambient noise. The settings can also be altered based on trail camera conditions such as available battery capacity or image storage capacity. The trail camera settings can also be altered based on images obtained by the trail camera, with or without analyzing content of the images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 16, 2018
    Inventors: Joseph F Hlatky, Steven D Thomas, Jr.
  • Patent number: 9865083
    Abstract: An apparatus and a method for rendering three-dimensional stereoscopic images are provided. The apparatus comprises a multi-view processor, an object device, a depth device, and a block filling device. The multi-view processor obtains depth related data of a first pixel and a second pixel which are adjacent to each other on the input image, calculates a difference between the depth related data and determines whether the first pixel and the second pixel are continuous according to the difference. The object device executes a process of object detection to output contour information. The depth device executes a process of object judgment to output distance information. The block filling device detects a hole region in each viewpoint image, searches a search region adjacent to the hole region for a number of original pixels, and fills the hole region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 9, 2018
    Assignee: INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
    Inventors: Hsin-Jung Chen, Feng-Hsiang Lo, Sheng-Dong Wu, Ming-Yu Lin, Chun-Te Wu, Hao-Wei Peng
  • Patent number: 9860453
    Abstract: Methods and systems for estimating HDR sky light probes for outdoor images are disclosed. A precaptured sky light probe database is leveraged. The database includes a plurality of HDR sky light probes captured under a plurality of different illumination conditions. A HDR sky light probe is estimated from an outdoor image by fitting a three dimensional model to an object of interest in the image and solving an inverse optimization lighting problem for the 3D model where the space of possible HDR sky light probes is constrained by the HDR sky light probes of the database.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 4, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2018
    Assignee: DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
    Inventors: Iain Matthews, Jean-Francois Lalonde