Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for dewarping images. According to one aspect of the present invention, rotational motion of a scene is taken into account for purposes for performing image dewarping. The image is extracted from the scene by selecting pixel values from an environment map that correspond to a viewing plane. Velocity information associated with rotational motion of the scene is determined. Then, based upon the velocity information, a velocity-dependent transformation is determined. Finally, a perspective image is created by applying the velocity-dependent transformation to the image. In this manner, when the images is presented to a user, the appearance of visible and objectionable distortion may be reduced while maintaining the perceived geometric accuracy of the image. For example, when the scene is rotating at a high angular velocity, little or no dewarping may be performed and the image extracted therefrom may be presented essentially uncorrected.

Abstract: An image processing system for monitoring a laser peening process includes a laser peening system having a workpiece positioner and a system controller. A video camera is utilized for forming an electronic image of at least a portion of a workpiece. An image processing computer is connected to the video camera, and the laser peening controller includes a program to determine a position of the workpiece.

Abstract: An imaging process in which measured data is employed to generate at least one image, the image is then compared to a reference image, on the basis of this comparison a relative position between the image and the reference image is determined, and any influence of the relative position of the images is eliminated. The imaging process comprises determining a gradient of image data in the reference image in a first coordinate system, determining a movement-corrected vector, and transforming the image data from a first coordinate system into a second coordinate system.

Abstract: System, method and apparatus for compressing and decompressing image data. In an embodiment, a color cell is compressed by: defining at least four luminance levels of the color cell; generating a bitmask for the color cell, the bitmask having a plurality of entries each corresponding to a respective one of the pixels, each of the entries for storing data identifying one of the luminance levels associated with a corresponding one of the pixels; calculating a first average color of pixels associated with a first one of the luminance levels; calculating a second average color of pixels associated with a second one of the luminance levels; and storing the bitmask in association with the first average color and the second average color.

Abstract: In a color range designation apparatus and method, a designation pixel of a display image is input, and a color of the designation pixel of the display image is determined. A range between a minimum color and a maximum color for the input designation pixel is determined based on the color determined.

Abstract: An apparatus for automatically assessing the quality of a printed circuit board assembly (6) using digitized video image analysis. The apparatus integrates with existing relatively low precision automated surface mount technology (“SMT”) manufacturing systems as an inspection station (56a) insertable at various steps in the assembly process or as a separate manually loaded station. The inspection station includes a high resolution video imaging system and a video image analyzer comprising an onboard master computer (26a) that generates control signals to reposition the camera mounted within a screen (45) on a movable carriage (22a) and/or reposition the circuit board, and adjust the lighting; and generates individual board status data to be archived, graphically displayed on monitors (40a, 41a) or otherwise utilized by a rework station.

Abstract: A steganographic method is disclosed to embed an invisible watermark into an image. It can be used for copyright protection, content authentication or content annotation. The technique is mainly based on K-L transform. Firstly a block and cluster step 106 and cluster selection step 108 are performed to enhance the optimization of K-L transform 110 for a given image. Then a watermark is embedded 114 into the selected eigen-clusters. ECC (Error Correction Code) can be employed to reduce the embedded code error rate. The proposed method is characterized by robustness despite the degradation or modification on the watermarked content. Furthermore, the method can be extended to video, audio or other multimedia especially for multimedia databases in which the stored multimedia are categorized by their contents or classes.

Abstract: A method for assigning a color symbol to an image pixel comprises selecting a luminance value from a discrete set of quantized luminance values; selecting a chrominance value from an ordered discrete set of quantized chrominance values; and composing a color symbol from an index of the selected luminance value and an index of an ordinal position of the selected chrominance value. In particular embodiments of the invention, each discrete chrominance value is selected from a Fibonacci lattice on a constant-luminance plane in a perceptually uniform color space such as Lab or Luv.

Abstract: A three-dimensional (3-D) machine-vision obstacle detection solution involving a method and apparatus for performing high-integrity, high efficiency machine vision. The machine vision obstacle detection solution converts two-dimensional video pixel data into 3-D point data that is used for calculation of the closest distance from the vehicle to points on the 3-D objects, for any object within view of at least one imaging device configured to provide obstacle detection. The obstacle detection apparatus includes an image acquisition device arranged to view a monitored scene stereoscopically and pass the resulting multiple video output signals to a computer for further processing. The multiple video output signals are connected to the input of a video processor adapted to accept the video signals. Video images from each camera are then synchronously sampled, captured, and stored in a memory associated with a general purpose processor.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for detecting edges by which the detection of the edges of a natural image from an image obtained by mixing the graphic or text and the natural image is suppressed, to thereby stably detect edges of the graphic or the text, are disclosed. In this method, the differences in pixel value between the first pixel of sequentially input images and eight pixels adjacent to the first pixel are obtained. If all of the differences between the first pixel and the eight pixels adjacent to the first pixel are greater than a maximum threshold value or less than a minimum threshold value, the first pixel is determined to be an edge pixel. Likewise, determinations are made as to whether a second pixel, positioned adjacent the first pixel along a first dimension (for example to the left of the first pixel), is an edge pixel and whether a third pixel, positioned adjacent the first pixel along a second dimension (for example above the first pixel), is an edge pixel.

Abstract: A system and method for automatically detecting anatomical landmarks in a radiographic image, preferably for total hip replacement applications, in accordance with the present invention, provides a region of interest of the image, and determines a first landmark in the region of interest by computing an intensity ridge map. A second landmark is determined in the region of interest based on a position and orientation of the first landmark, and measurements are performed on the image based on positions of the first and second landmarks.

Abstract: A dictionary based method of lossless compression and encryption of small redundancy data. A sequence of integer samples equivalent to a group of bits of input data, compared with samples of several dictionaries produced by random number generators. Frequency distribution of the samples of the dictionary transformed to be similar to the distribution of the samples of the input sequence. The sequence of the least distances obtained between every input numerical sample and the samples of the dictionary. The output sequence created with the sequences of these distances and the indexes of the samples of the dictionary, and used for a statistical compression. Calculated and assigned parameters accumulated in a protocol, providing lossless decompression. The process of substitutions of the output sequence for the input sequence repeated for compression or for encryption.

Abstract: Anti-counterfeiting marking for documents, which marking may be disguised as an incidental or artistic feature of overall marking on the documents is adapted to be read by a complementary reading device. In one embodiment the marking may be a one, two or three-dimensional statistically fractal marking and is representative of an array of digits in which the value of each digit is represented by the fractal dimensions over a corresponding region or set of regions of the document bearing the marking. Corresponding apparatus for reading the anti-corresponding marking is also provided.

Abstract: A method (500) adjusts the epipolar lines associated with two or more images (110,120) taken of the same scene such that the images (110,120) are and vertically aligned. The method (500) creates two or more search columns on the first image. The images (110,120) are split into grayscale sub-images corresponding to each color coordinate used to describe the color of a point in the image. A matching algorithm is applied to each point in the search column in each sub-image pair to calculate the vertical shift between the matched points. The shift values calculated for the matched points are then extrapolated across the entire image and used to align the points in the first (110) and second (120) image.

Abstract: A measurement system (1) has a camera with a lens (12) and a separate sensor (10) mounted so that their planes (13,11) intersect at an object plane (3) according to the Scheimpflug principle. A reference camera(4) is normal and provides a 2D normal image which is used by an image processor (25) to determine a calibration image. This allows the image processor to determine height of the object (2). A single image capture provides an image of the full object, such as a ball grid array (BGA).

Abstract: A watermarking method and device to embed a digitized watermark into a digital image file in the spatial domain first performs error correction to enhance the robustness of the digital image. The digital image file is first processed such that capacity of each element of the digital image file is calculated. The capacity represents the highest power of element of the watermark that can be added to the related element of the digital file. Elements to which watermark elements may be added are selected and their addresses are stored. Elements of the watermark file are then inserted into the selected addresses in sequence and the watermark is modulated. After the modulation the digitized watermark is embedded into the digital file by distributing the modulated elements of the watermark into the selected addresses.

Abstract: A transmission method for video image data using an embedded bit stream in a hierarchical table-lookup vector quantizer comprises the steps encoding an image using hierarchical vector quantization and an embedding process to obtain an embedded bit stream for lossless transmission. The bit stream is selectively truncated and decoded to obtain a reconstructed image.

Abstract: Representing an image includes extracting several types of information about an image that are then used to compute a joint histogram. A weighting factor may be applied to at least one of the types of information extracted about the image such that the joint histogram represents a weighted joint histogram. Representing an image may further include calculating a posterized joint histogram. The posterized joint histogram may be calculated after the weighting factor has been applied.

Abstract: A pattern recognition apparatus that comprises an input section, a feature extraction module, a feature transform module, a recognition section that includes a recognition dictionary, and a categorizer. The input section receives input patterns that include a pattern belonging to one of plural categories constituting a category set. The feature extraction module that expresses features of the pattern as a feature vector. The feature transform module uses transform vector matrices to transform at least part of the feature vector to generate an at least partially transformed feature vector corresponding to each of the categories. The transform vector matrices include a transform vector matrix generated in response to a rival pattern set composed of rival patterns misrecognized as belonging to plural ones of the categories. The plural ones of the categories constitute a category subset. The at least partially transformed feature vector is common to the ones of the categories constituting the category subset.

Abstract: Methods and systems of protecting digital objects are described. In one embodiment, a user is presented with a degraded version of a digital object. An exemplary degraded version might be a thumbnail version of a digital image. The user can then request portions of the degraded version of the object. Before a user is allowed to experience the requested portion, it is processed to perturb the portion in a manner that is generally imperceptible to the user. The user can request multiple portions and each portion is advantageously perturbed. In one embodiment, each of the multiple requested portions are perturbed differently so that if a user attempts to assemble the individual portions, they will not fit together. Each perturbation, however, when experienced individually by a user, is generally imperceptible to the user. Rule-based methods and systems for protecting digital objects by constraining a user's browsing behavior are also described.