Abstract: Described are systems and techniques to generate data for display to present visualizations of data acquired from sensors in a facility. The data visualizations may be used to develop, configure, administer, or otherwise support operation of the facility. In one implementation, the visualization may include a view incorporating aggregated images acquired from multiple cameras, depth data, tracking information about objects in the facility, and so forth. An analyst may use the data visualization to determine occurrence of an action in the facility such as a pick of an item, place of an item, what item was involved with an action, what user was involved with the action, and so forth. Based on the information presented by the data visualization, changes may be made to data processing parameters.

Abstract: Described is a multiple-camera system for use in capturing images of users within a materials handling facility and processing those images to monitor the movement of users. For large materials handling facilities, a large number of cameras may be required to monitor the facility. Processing of the data generated from a large number of cameras becomes difficult. The implementations described herein include a hierarchy that allows image data from any number of cameras within a materials handling facility to be processed without substantially increasing the processing time needed or sacrificing processing capabilities.

Abstract: Systems involving a plurality of cameras with clocks may not remain time synchronized during operation. Described in this disclosure are techniques for synchronizing one or more of the clocks of a plurality of cameras or the images produced by the plurality of cameras. In one implementation, a timestamp projector produces an optical timestamp encoding data indicative of timing. One or more cameras may acquire images of a scene that include the optical timestamp. The images may be processed to recover the data indicative of timing. This data may be used to set the clock of the camera, set timestamps associated with the images for subsequent use, and so forth.

Abstract: Various approaches for providing textual information to an application, system, or service are disclosed. In particular, various embodiments enable a user to capture an image with a camera of a portable computing device. The computing device is capable of taking the image and processing it to recognize, identify, and/or isolate the text in order to forward the text to an application or function. The application or function can then utilize the text to perform an action in substantially real-time. The text may include an email, phone number, URL, an address, and the like and the application or function may be dialing the phone number, navigating to the URL, opening an address book to save contact information, displaying a map to show the address, and so on.

Abstract: A user can capture an image of an object, using a computing device, to obtain information about that object. If a specular highlight (or other saturated region) is detected, the device can attempt to determine a location of a light source associated with the highlight. The device can then provide instructions as to a direction to move in order to reduce the presence of the specular highlight in subsequent images. Multiple images of the object can be captured and analyzed to generate a three-dimensional reconstruction of the environment, whereby a position of the light source can be determined. In other embodiments, movement of the specular reflections in response to movement of the device is used to determine a direction of the light source. In other embodiments, an image of the user is captured to determine the position of the light source based on shadows or reflections on the user.

Abstract: A user can capture various types of information concurrently using multiple sensors of an electronic device. This “scene” data can be provided to a service for processing, which is able to identify various types of potential matches and aggregate information to be returned to the client device. In at least some embodiments, matching information can be sent with the results such that the electronic device can match an element in the scene the next time that element is encountered, without having to contact the service again. In some embodiments, an attempt can be made to predict elements that the user might attempt to identify, and one or more corpora of data can be sent to the electronic device such that the client device can perform any matching on the device for elements in those corpora.

Abstract: A computing device can be configured to analyze information, such as frames captured in a video by a camera in the computing device, to determine locations of objects in captured frames using a scene-based tracking approach without individually having to track the identified objects across the captured frames. The computing device can track scenes, a global planar surface, across newly captured frames and the changes to (or transformation) the scene can be used to determine updated locations for objects that were identified in previously captured frames. Changes to the scene between frames can be measured using various techniques for estimating homographies. An updated location for the particular object in the currently captured frame can be determined by adjusting the location of the object, as determined in the previously captured frame, with respect to the transformation of the scene between the previously captured frame and the currently captured frame.

Abstract: A user attempting to obtain information about an object can capture image information including a view of that object, and the image information can be used with a matching or identification process to provide information about that type of object to the user. In order to narrow the search space to a specific category, and thus improve the accuracy of the results and the speed at which results can be obtained, the user can be guided to capture image information with an appropriate orientation. An outline or other graphical guide can be displayed over image information captured by a computing device, in order to guide the user in capturing the object from an appropriate direction and with an appropriate scale for the type of matching and/or information used for the matching. Such an approach enables three-dimensional objects to be analyzed using conventional two-dimensional identification algorithms, among other such processes.

Abstract: The accuracy of a text recognition process can be improved using a set of semantic boosting rules, as may be contained in a sequence or other such arrangement. When text is output from a text recognition process, that text can have alternatives and confidence values for different characters or portions of the string. In order to improve the accuracy, this data can be processed using the organized rules, where rules are applied as long as any preconditions for that rule are satisfied, and each rule has the ability to modify the confidence values or modify one or more of the alternatives. When a result it produced with a minimum confidence level, or all applicable rules have been applied, the result can be provided as a refined text output of the recognition process.

Abstract: A user can capture various types of information concurrently using multiple sensors of an electronic device. This “scene” data can be provided to a service for processing, which is able to identify various types of potential matches and aggregate information to be returned to the client device. In at least some embodiments, matching information can be sent with the results such that the electronic device can match an element in the scene the next time that element is encountered, without having to contact the service again. In some embodiments, an attempt can be made to predict elements that the user might attempt to identify, and one or more corpora of data can be sent to the electronic device such that the client device can perform any matching on the device for elements in those corpora.

Abstract: A user attempting to obtain information about an object can capture image information including a view of that object, and the image information can be used with a matching or identification process to provide information about that type of object to the user. In order to narrow the search space to a specific category, and thus improve the accuracy of the results and the speed at which results can be obtained, the user can be guided to capture image information with an appropriate orientation. An outline or other graphical guide can be displayed over image information captured by a computing device, in order to guide the user in capturing the object from an appropriate direction and with an appropriate scale for the type of matching and/or information used for the matching. Such an approach enables three-dimensional objects to be analyzed using conventional two-dimensional identification algorithms, among other such processes.

Abstract: Various embodiments enable a computing device to capture multiple images (or video) of text and provide at least a portion of the same to a recognizer to separately recognize text from each image. Each of the recognized outputs will typically include one or more text strings for each image. Substrings common to each of the one or more text strings are computed and compared to each text string within each image to determine an alignment consensus for each substring within the text. A template string is generated that includes each common substring in a position corresponding to a determined alignment for a respective substring. A character frequency vote is then applied to unresolved portions and the final text string is determined by filling the unresolved spaces with the character having the highest occurrence rate for a respective space.

Abstract: Various approaches for providing textual information to an application, system, or service are disclosed. In particular, various embodiments enable a user to capture an image with a camera of a portable computing device. The computing device is capable of taking the image and processing it to recognize, identify, and/or isolate the text in order to forward the text to an application or function. The application or function can then utilize the text to perform an action in substantially real-time. The text may include an email, phone number, URL, an address, and the like and the application or function may be dialing the phone number, navigating to the URL, opening an address book to save contact information, displaying a map to show the address, and so on. Adaptive thresholding can be used to account for variations across an image, in order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of text recognition processes.

Abstract: Systems and approaches are provided for obtaining high quality image data from lower resolution and/or lower quality image data. An electronic device can be calibrated comprehensively prior to being provided to a user. The calibrated electronic device can be used to capture image data, image metadata, and other sensor data substantially simultaneously. Super-resolution processing can be applied to the captured image data to obtain higher quality image data than the captured image data, such as image data that corresponds to a higher resolution, has less blur, has less noise, has fewer photometric imperfections, and/or has fewer artifacts.

Abstract: A user attempting to obtain information about an object can capture image information including a view of that object, and the image information can be used with a matching or identification process to provide information about that type of object to the user. In order to narrow the search space to a specific category, and thus improve the accuracy of the results and the speed at which results can be obtained, the user can be guided to capture image information with an appropriate orientation. An outline or other graphical guide can be displayed over image information captured by a computing device, in order to guide the user in capturing the object from an appropriate direction and with an appropriate scale for the type of matching and/or information used for the matching. Such an approach enables three-dimensional objects to be analyzed using conventional two-dimensional identification algorithms, among other such processes.

Abstract: Various approaches for providing textual information to an application, system, or service are disclosed. In particular, various embodiments enable a user to capture an image with a camera of a portable computing device. The computing device is capable of taking the image and processing it to recognize, identify, and/or isolate the text in order to forward the text to an application or function. The application or function can then utilize the text to perform an action in substantially real-time. The text may include an email, phone number, URL, an address, and the like and the application or function may be dialing the phone number, navigating to the URL, opening an address book to save contact information, displaying a map to show the address, and so on. Adaptive thresholding can be used to account for variations across an image, in order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of text recognition processes.

Abstract: A user attempting to obtain information about an object can capture image information including a view of that object, and the image information can be used with a matching or identification process to provide information about that type of object to the user. In order to narrow the search space to a specific category, and thus improve the accuracy of the results and the speed at which results can be obtained, the user can be guided to capture image information with an appropriate orientation. An outline or other graphical guide can be displayed over image information captured by a computing device, in order to guide the user in capturing the object from an appropriate direction and with an appropriate scale for the type of matching and/or information used for the matching. Such an approach enables three-dimensional objects to be analyzed using conventional two-dimensional identification algorithms, among other such processes.

Abstract: Various approaches for providing textual information to an application, system, or service are disclosed. In particular, various embodiments enable a user to capture an image with a camera of a portable computing device. The computing device is capable of taking the image and processing it to recognize, identify, and/or isolate the text in order to forward the text to an application or function. The application or function can then utilize the text to perform an action in substantially real-time. The text may include an email, phone number, URL, an address, and the like and the application or function may be dialing the phone number, navigating to the URL, opening an address book to save contact information, displaying a map to show the address, and so on. Adaptive thresholding can be used to account for variations across an image, in order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of text recognition processes.

Abstract: Various approaches for providing textual information to an application, system, or service are disclosed. In particular, various embodiments enable a user to capture an image with a camera of a portable computing device. The computing device is capable of taking the image and processing it to recognize, identify, and/or isolate the text in order to forward the text to an application or function. The application or function can then utilize the text to perform an action in substantially real-time. The text may include an email, phone number, URL, an address, and the like and the application or function may be dialing the phone number, navigating to the URL, opening an address book to save contact information, displaying a map to show the address, and so on.

Abstract: Various approaches for providing textual information to an application, system, or service are disclosed. In particular, various embodiments enable a user to capture an image with a camera of a portable computing device. The computing device is capable of taking the image and processing it to recognize, identify, and/or isolate the text in order to forward the text to an application or function. The application or function can then utilize the text to perform an action in substantially real-time. The text may include an email, phone number, URL, an address, and the like and the application or function may be dialing the phone number, navigating to the URL, opening an address book to save contact information, displaying a map to show the address, and so on. Adaptive thresholding can be used to account for variations across an image, in order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of text recognition processes.