Patents Examined by Peter D Le
  • Patent number: 10741110
    Abstract: A vehicular outer panel is provided that is capable of displaying an image or a video which is easily viewed even outdoors under direct sunlight for people outside the vehicle. The vehicular outer panel includes: a transparent plate that is attached to a vehicle and constitutes an outer wall of a vehicle body; and a reflective display unit that is provided on an inner surface, in the inside/outside direction of the vehicle, of the transparent plate and is capable of displaying an image or a video for people outside the vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2020
    Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Yutaka Kanaguchi, Ichiro Shibata
  • Patent number: 10728468
    Abstract: A thermal imaging camera comprises an infrared lens assembly and associated IR sensor for detecting thermal images of a target scene, a processor, and at least one additional sensor. The at least one additional sensor is configured to provide measurement data to the processor, where it is compared to a predetermined requirement. If the measurement data satisfies the predetermined requirement, the camera will prompt the user via a display. During use, the camera can prompt the user to provide annotation data, conduct a thermographic inspection, inspect the target scene, or perform other tasks based on the measurement data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 17, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2020
    Assignee: Fluke Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas J. McManus, Matthew F. Schmidt
  • Patent number: 10725278
    Abstract: Provided is a microscope including: an illumination optical system that irradiates a specimen including a fluorescent substance with illumination light; an observation optical system including an objective lens; an imager that takes an image formed by the observation optical system; an image processor that performs image processing by using a result of the image taking; and a controller that moves at least one of a stage and the objective lens in the optical axis direction of the objective lens.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2020
    Assignee: NIKON CORPORATION
    Inventors: Ichiro Sase, Yasutoshi Kaneko, Tatsuo Fukui
  • Patent number: 10721413
    Abstract: A microscopy system includes: an imaging unit configured to capture a subject image generated by an observation optical system of a microscope, and acquire an image; a shifting unit configured to shift positions of a focal plane and a field of view of the observation optical system; an imaging control unit configured to cause the imaging unit to acquire a multi-focused image by shifting the positions of the focal plane and the field of view in one exposure period of the imaging unit; a shift amount acquisition processing unit configured to acquire a shift amount, by which the position of the field of view is shifted; an all-focused image generating unit configured to respectively generate plural all-focused images based on plural multi-focused images and on blurring information; and a display unit configured to consecutively display the generated plural all-focused images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 4, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 21, 2020
    Assignee: OLYMPUS CORPORATION
    Inventor: Yoko Abe
  • Patent number: 10716463
    Abstract: An endoscope includes: an aperture portion having an opening to which light from an observation target site is incident; a filter unit that has a plurality of filters and selectively transmits light based on any one of the filters; a color separation prism that is formed by a plurality of separation prisms which separate light, which has transmitted through the filter unit, into beams of light having different color components from each other; a plurality of image sensors that are provided so as to respectively correspond to the separation prisms and capture an image based on the beams of light; a signal output unit that outputs image signals captured by the image sensors respectively; and a filter disposing unit that disposes any one of the plurality of filters so that the light is incident to the disposed one of the plurality of filters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 21, 2020
    Assignee: PANASONIC I-PRO SENSING SOLUTIONS CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Seiji Higashiyama, Yuuichi Takenaga, Haruyasu Katahira
  • Patent number: 10721480
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and method that can generate a high-accuracy prediction image with a small amount of control information. A motion compensation circuit 51 specifies a macroblock corresponding to a prediction image in a reference frame other than a current frame using a motion vector supplied from a prediction mode determination circuit 41. The motion compensation circuit 51 reads an image of the specified macroblock from a frame memory 19, and extracts the read image as a motion compensation image. An intra-prediction circuit 52 performs intra-prediction on the current frame using an arbitrary method to generate an intra-prediction image IP. The present invention can be applied to, for example, an encoding apparatus and a decoding apparatus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 21, 2020
    Assignee: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Ohji Nakagami, Yoichi Yagasaki
  • Patent number: 10703276
    Abstract: A vehicular display system is provided that is capable of achieving both display performance of images or videos and viewability as a window in a non-display mode. The vehicular display system includes: a window that is a transparent plate mounted on a vehicle; a liquid crystal unit that is arranged on the inner surface, in the inside/outside direction of the vehicle, of the window and has changeable levels of transparency; a projector that projects images or videos onto the liquid crystal unit; and a control unit that controls the liquid crystal unit and the projector, wherein the control unit controls the projector in a state of the liquid crystal unit being translucent, to cause the projector to project images or videos onto the liquid crystal unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 7, 2020
    Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Yutaka Kanaguchi
  • Patent number: 10708616
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for encoding and decoding a motion vector of a current block. The method of encoding including: generating information about the motion vector based on a motion vector of a current block and a motion vector predictor of the current block by estimating the motion vector and determining a first motion vector predictor candidate from among a plurality of motion vector predictor candidates as the motion vector predictor based on a result of the estimating; and generating a virtual motion vector by using a second motion vector predictor candidate and the information about the motion vector, generating vector differences between the virtual motion vector and the plurality of motion vector predictor candidates, comparing the vector differences with the information about the motion vector, and selectively excluding the second motion vector predictor candidate according to the comparing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 7, 2020
    Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Tammy Lee, Woo-jin Han
  • Patent number: 10696228
    Abstract: A device comprises: a rear video data acquiring unit 42 configured to acquire first video data from a rear camera that is arranged on a rear part of the vehicle and configured to image a rear side of the vehicle; a clipping unit 50 configured to clip a first area that is a part of the first video data acquired by the rear video data acquiring unit 42; a detecting unit 70 configured to perform moving object recognition and detect presence of a rear moving object in the first video data; and a display control unit 90 configured to display video clipped as the first area on a rearview monitor 140 that displays rear video of the vehicle, and display video clearly indicating presence of a detected rear moving object if the detecting unit 70 detects presence of the rear moving object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 4, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 30, 2020
    Assignee: JVC KENWOOD Corporation
    Inventors: Izumi Saeki, Hideaki Okamura
  • Patent number: 10694165
    Abstract: The usual coding order according to which the reference view is coded prior to the dependent view, and within each view, a depth map is coded subsequent to the respective picture, may be maintained and does lead to a sacrifice of efficiency in performing inter-view redundancy removal by, for example, predicting motion data of the current picture of the dependent view from motion data of the current picture of the reference view. Rather, a depth map estimate of the current picture of the dependent view is obtained by warping the depth map of the current picture of the reference view into the dependent view, thereby enabling various methods of inter-view redundancy reduction more efficiently by bridging the gap between the views.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 23, 2020
    Assignee: GE VIDEO COMPRESSION, LLC
    Inventors: Heiko Schwarz, Thomas Wiegand
  • Patent number: 10687403
    Abstract: An adaptive lighting system (100), a (virtual) mirror arrangement, a method of controlling light sources of an adaptive light sources, a method of controlling a virtual mirror and a computer program product are provided. The adaptive lighting system is for a mirror component that is configured to show a mirror image of the user at the mirror surface of the mirror component. The adaptive lighting system comprises a plurality of individually controllable light sources (111 . . . 119), a sensor (102), and a controller (104). The sensor detects a relative orientation of the head of the user with respect to the mirror surface. The controller generates control signals (121 . . . 129) for the individually controllable light sources on the basis of the sensor signal. The controller generates the control signals to obtain a lower emission of light towards eyes of the user if the sensor signal indicates that the head is turned left sidewards, upwards, right sidewards and/or downwards.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2020
    Assignee: KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V.
    Inventors: Frederik Jan De Bruijn, Vincentius Paulus Buil, Karl Catharina Van Bree, Leo Jan Velthoven, Daniel Willem Elisabeth Schobben
  • Patent number: 10681305
    Abstract: A method and system of transmitting a plurality of area-of-interest video codestreams is described. A first video codestream and one or more second video codestreams are generated from a plurality of large format images that are captured. The first video codestream has a first plurality of areas-of-interest selected from the plurality of large format images and the one or more second video codestream have at least a second plurality of areas-of-interest from the same plurality of large format images. The first video codestream is generated at a first frame rate and each of the second video codestreams is generated at a second frame rate. The first and second video codestreams are combined to obtain a combined video codestream. The combined video codestream is then transmitted to a computer system that regenerates the first video codestream and the one or more second video codestreams at their respective frame rates.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2020
    Assignee: PIXIA CORP.
    Inventors: Rudolf O. Ernst, Rahul C. Thakkar
  • Patent number: 10681380
    Abstract: The image encoding method includes: encoding an image including a block by performing, in at least one of intra prediction, inter prediction, and an in-loop filter, a non-linear process by which the input-output relationship becomes non-linear; and encoding an operation parameter of a non-linear filter to be used in the non-linear process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 18, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2020
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Kengo Terada, Takahiro Nishi, Tadamasa Toma, Satoshi Yoshikawa
  • Patent number: 10674173
    Abstract: A sequence of picture slices is encoded as reference slices and non-reference slices, wherein the reference slices include B slices, by forming, for each B slice, at least one data packet containing data values derived from brightness and color information pertaining to the slice. The data packet for each B slice includes a header element indicating whether the B slice is a reference slice. The header element of each reference B slice has a value that depends on depth of the reference B slice in a hierarchy of discardability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignee: ARRIS Enterprises LLC
    Inventors: Mandayam A. Narasimhan, Robert O. Eifrig
  • Patent number: 10674156
    Abstract: A communication system is configured to automatically adapt an image sequence in response to movement of a camera used to capture the image sequence. The adaptation includes a reduction in the data size of the image sequence and can occur in real-time as the image sequence is captured. The adaptation further includes restoration of the data size of the image in response to a reduction in movement of the camera. This approach allows for the communication of quality images shortly after movement of the has been reduced.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignee: UJET, Inc.
    Inventors: Eli Chen, Anand Janefalkar
  • Patent number: 10674138
    Abstract: Systems with an array camera augmented with a conventional camera in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed. In some embodiments, the array camera is used to capture a first set of image data of a scene and a conventional camera is used to capture a second set of image data for the scene. An object of interest is identified in the first set of image data. A first depth measurement for the object of interest is determined and compared to a predetermined threshold. If the first depth measurement is above the threshold, a second set of image data captured using the conventional camera is obtained. The object of interest is identified in the second set of image data and a second depth measurement for the object of interest is determined using at least a portion of the first set of image data and at least a portion of the second set of image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 2, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignee: FotoNation Limited
    Inventors: Kartik Venkataraman, Paul Gallagher, Ankit K. Jain, Semyon Nisenzon, Dan Lelescu, Florian Ciurea, Gabriel Molina
  • Patent number: 10663295
    Abstract: A distance measurement system includes a pair of cameras and is arranged on a roof of a mobile object or an upper edge portion of a door of the mobile object. One of the cameras is arranged at a first portion on an upper surface of the roof or on the upper edge portion of the door, includes an optical axis oriented upward from the upper surface, and has a field of view in all directions around the optical axis. The other camera is arranged at a second portion different from the first portion on the upper surface of the roof or the upper edge portion of the door, includes an optical axis oriented upward from the upper surface, and has a field of view in all directions around the optical axis. Distance measurement in all directions from the mobile object is performed by using this pair of cameras.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 31, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2020
    Assignee: SOCIONEXT INC.
    Inventors: Shunsaku Imaki, Yukiteru Murao, Tetsuro Noguchi, Kenichi Ishida, Masato Suzuki, Kazuyuki Ohhashi
  • Patent number: 10666863
    Abstract: Innovations in stream configuration operations and playback operations for adaptive streaming of panoramic video are described. The innovations include features of adaptive streaming of panoramic video with overlapping sections. For example, a stream configuration tool splits an input picture of panoramic video into overlapping sections. A playback tool reconstructs one or more of the sections. Because of overlap between adjacent sections, for gradual changes in a view window, the playback tool can, in effect, preemptively fetch a new section as the view window moves out of a current section into the new section. By the time the view window reaches a non-overlapping part of the adjacent, new section, the playback tool has retrieved encoded data for the new section and can reconstruct the new section. This hides network latency and stream switching latency from the viewer, and disruption of playback is avoided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 25, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2020
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Matthew Wozniak, Bakkama Srinath Reddy, Amr Martini
  • Patent number: 10656405
    Abstract: A method for image capture for colorimetric analysis includes inserting a colorimetric sample into a slot formed in a base of a device. The device includes a lid surrounding and covering the base. The lid includes a central opening, and a plurality of lights are within the lid and surrounding the opening. The method also includes selecting one or more wavelengths and intensities for illuminating the sample within the device, illuminating the sample within the device with the selected one or more wavelengths and intensities by selectively activating one or more of the plurality of lights, adjusting a height of a camera over the sample to focus the sample in the camera, and capturing at least one image of the sample using the camera.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2020
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Alvaro Bueno Buoro, Ademir Fereira da Silva, Ricardo Luis Ohta
  • Patent number: 10659750
    Abstract: The disclosure relates to a method and system for presenting at least part of an image of a real object in a view of a real environment, comprising providing a first image of at least part of a real object captured by a first camera, determining at least part of the real object in the first image as an object image area, determining a first 3D plane relative to the first camera, the first camera being at a position where the first image is captured, providing at least one image feature related to the real object in the first image, providing at least one first ray passing an optical center of the first camera being at a position where the first image is captured and the at least one image feature, determining, according to a first plane normal direction of the first 3D plane, at least one first angle between the first 3D plane and the at least one first ray, providing a second image of a real environment captured by a second camera, determining a second 3D plane relative to the second camera, the second camer
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2020
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Peter Meier, Lejing Wang, Stefan Misslinger