Abstract: A device and a corresponding method for skin detection to enable a reliable, accurate and fast detection are disclosed. The proposed device comprises an illumination unit configured to project a predetermined illumination pattern onto a scene, an imaging unit configured to acquire an image of the scene, and an evaluation unit configured to evaluate the acquired image by analyzing the imaged illumination pattern as reproduced in the image and to detect skin areas within the image and distinguish them from non-skin areas within the image based on said analysis.

Abstract: According to an aspect, there is provided a method for measuring the intracranial pressure, ICP, in a subject, the method comprising detecting whether spontaneous retinal venous pulsations, SRVPs, are occurring in an eye of the subject as the orientation of the head of the subject changes; identifying the orientation of the head of the subject at which SRVPs start to occur or stop occurring; and using the identified orientation of the head of the subject at which SRVPs start to occur or stop occurring to determine the ICP in the subject.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of encoding blocks of values, e.g. DCT blocks, generated in accordance with an image compression scheme. The values are expressed as a set of bit planes, each bit plane comprising, for the values, all bits with a specific significance. In each bit plane at least one parameter is determined (7) in accordance with a predetermined definition, the parameter defining a partition of the bits in the bit plane which encloses all set bits. All bits in the partition are transferred (8) to a bit stream that may be truncated. This provides a method with low complexity. The invention further relates to a corresponding encoding device, a corresponding decoding device, and a corresponding bit-stream.

Abstract: The present invention relates to system for extracting physiological information indicative of at least one vital sign of a subject from detected light transmitted through a part of the subject (1). To overcome the limitations of the contactless camera-based reflective PPG technique and classical contact sensors the proposed system comprises a medical instrument (12, 24) for at least partly introduction into a subject's body, one or more light sources (14, 15) for emitting light, said one or more light sources being mounted to the part of the medical instrument that is introduced into the subject's body during use, a light detection unit (16) for detecting light emitted by said one or more light sources and transmitted through a part of the subject, and a processing unit (18) for deriving physiological information indicative of at least one vital sign from the detected light using remote photo-plethysmography.

Abstract: A device and a corresponding method for skin detection to enable a reliable, accurate and fast detection are disclosed. The proposed device comprises an illumination unit configured to project a predetermined illumination pattern onto a scene, an imaging unit configured to acquire an image of the scene, and an evaluation unit configured to evaluate the acquired image by analyzing the imaged illumination pattern as reproduced in the image and to detect skin areas within the image and distinguish them from non-skin areas within the image based on said analysis.

Abstract: According to an aspect, there is provided a method for measuring the intracranial pressure, ICP, in a subject, the method comprising detecting whether spontaneous retinal venous pulsations, SRVPs, are occurring in an eye of the subject as the orientation of the head of the subject changes; identifying the orientation of the head of the subject at which SRVPs start to occur or stop occurring; and using the identified orientation of the head of the subject at which SRVPs start to occur or stop occurring to determine the ICP in the subject.

Abstract: A method of forming a time-varying signal representative of at test variations in a value based on pixel values from a sequence of images, the signal corresponding in length to the sequence of images, includes obtaining the sequence of images. A plurality of groups of sub-sets of pixel values are formed by selecting a sub-set of at least one pixel value from each of at least two images defining an interval to form a group of associated sub-sets using at least one of a different aperture and a different interval length for groups defined on different intervals of the sequence. Groups of sub-sets are selected to form the signal to cover different intervals of the sequence of images by obtaining spatio-temporal volumes of pixel values from a sequence of images at least based on the received sequence of images. Each volume includes pixel values within a spatial aperture from each image within an interval of the sequence.

Abstract: A method of forming a time-varying signal representative of at test variations in a value based on pixel values from a sequence of images, the signal corresponding in length to the sequence of images, includes obtaining the sequence of images. A plurality of groups of sub-sets of pixel values are formed by selecting a sub-set of at least one pixel value from each of at least two images defining an interval to form a group of associated sub-sets using at least one of a different aperture and a different interval length for groups defined on different intervals of the sequence. Groups of sub-sets are selected to form the signal to cover different intervals of the sequence of images by obtaining spatio-temporal volumes of pixel values from a sequence of images at least based on the received sequence of images. Each volume includes pixel values within a spatial aperture from each image within an interval of the sequence.

Abstract: The versatile method of spatial and SNR scalable picture compression comprises: high resolution encoding (202a) an input picture (vi) yielding high resolution encoded data (coHR,LQ), being the base data; deriving a first down-scaled representative picture (p1) on the basis of the high resolution encoded data (coHR,LQ); deriving a second down-scaled representative picture (p2) on the basis of the input picture (vi); and lower resolution encoding (214) lower resolution quality enhancement data (coMR,MQ), usable for improving the visual quality of a picture reconstructable from the high resolution encoded data (coHR,LQ), on the basis of comparing the first down-scaled representative picture (p1) with the second down-scaled representative picture. This enables good bit-rate distribution for multi-resolution, multi-quality users.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of coding video data available in the form of a first input stream of video frames, and to a corresponding coding device. This method, implemented for instance in three successives stages (101, 102, 103), comprises the steps of (a) encoding said first input stream to produce a first coded base layer stream (BL1) suitable for a transmission at a first base layer bitrate; (b) based on said first input stream and a decoded version of said encoded first base layer stream, generating a first set of residual frames in the form of a first enhancement layer stream and encoding said stream to produce a first coded enhancement layer stream (EL1); and (c) repeating at least once a similar process in order to produce further coded base layer streams (BL2, BL3, . . . ) and further coded enhancement layer streams (EL2, EL3, . . . ).

Abstract: The versatile method of spatial and SNR scalable picture compression comprises: high resolution encoding (202a) an input picture (vi) yielding high resolution encoded data (coIIR,LQ), being the base data; deriving a first down-scaled representative picture (p1) on the basis of the high resolution encoded data (coHR,LQ); deriving a second down-scaled representative picture (p2) on the basis of the input picture (vi); and lower resolution encoding (214) lower resolution quality enhancement data (coMR,MQ), usable for improving the visual quality of a picture reconstructable from the high resolution encoded data (coIIR,LQ), on the basis of comparing the first down-scaled representative picture (p1) with the second down-scaled representative picture. This enables good bit-rate distribution for multi-resolution, multi-quality users.

Abstract: The invention relates to a signal processing system comprising first electronic means for storing an input signal, second means for a real-time processing of the input signal thus stored, and third electronic means for storing the signal thus processed. This system is according to the invention, characterized in that said second processing means themselves comprise off-line signal enhancement means applied to said input signal and using available processing resources, not still used for real-time or on-line processing, for delivering an enhanced signal and storing it in said third means for storing the signal processed by the second processing means.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of encoding blocks of values, e.g. DCT blocks, generated in accordance with an image compression scheme. The values are expressed as a set of bit planes, each bit plane comprising, for the values, all bits with a specific significance. In each bit plane at least one parameter is determined (7) in accordance with a predetermined definition, the parameter defining a partition of the bits in the bit plane which encloses all set bits. All bits in the partition are transferred (8) to a bit stream that may be truncated. This provides a method with low complexity. The invention further relates to a corresponding encoding device, a corresponding decoding device, and a corresponding bit-stream.

Abstract: A heterogeneous layered video decoding system and associated method is disclosed that provides for flexible and cost effective scalability through the use of generic decoders (e.g., MPEG-2/4/AVC) at each layer instead of decoders specifically designed for scalable systems. In one embodiment, additional signaling information (220) embodied as a parameter list is transmitted along with the transport stream (250). The parameter list independently defines for each layer (BS, ES), how the particular layer is to be decoded. In this manner, a trade-off between complexity and efficiency is achieved. For example, the base layer (BS) may employ a sophisticated base layer AVC codec, while one or more enhancement layers (ES) may use an MPEG-2 codec that is half as complex as a full AVC codec but only slightly less efficient.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of encoding a sequence of frames comprising the steps of dividing the sequence of frames into groups of N frames (F1-F8) with size H*W, one level sparial wavelet-based filtering (SF) the frames of a group to generate a first spatial subband (S1) of a first decomposition level comprising N low-low spatially filtered frames (LLs) with size H/2*W/2, doing motion estimation (ME1) on pairs of the low-low spatially filtered frames (LLS), resulting in a set of motion vector fields comprising N/2 fields, and motion-compensated temporal wavelet-based filtering (MCTF) the low-low spatially filtered frames (LLs) based on the set of motion vector fields, resulting in a first temporal subband (ST1) of a first decomposition level comprising N temporally filtered frames.

Abstract: The present invention relates to method for spatial up-scaling of an original video frame comprising p rows and q colums of pixels, where p and q are integers. Said up-scaling method comprises a step of constructing high-low (HL), low-high (LH), and high-high (HH) virtual spatial frequency subbands comprising p rows and q colums of pixels from the use of high-pass filtering of the original video frame, considered as a low-low spatial frequency subband (LL), in horizontal, vertical, and both directions, respectively. Said up-scaling method further comprises a step of applying an inverse wavelet transform (IWT) to the constructed subbands and to the original video frame in such a way that an up-sampled version of the original image is obtained.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of encoding an input signal into an output bit stream (BS). Said method comprises steps of applying (1) a transformation to a block of values (BV) in order to get a transformed block (T), scanning (2) the coefficients (C1-C1) of a transformed block (TB) according to a coefficient scanning order, splitting (3) a scanned coefficient (Ci) into K groups of bits (Ci,1-Ci,K) such that at least a group of bits comprise at least 2 bits and such that said scanned coefficient (Ci) is the concatenation of the K groups of bits, entropy coding (4) a kth group of bits (Ci,k) using entropy codes into a kth entropy coded group of bits (ECi,k) and forming (5) a block bit stream (BBS) from the K entropy coded groups of bits of the scanned coefficients of the transformed block, said output bit stream (BS) comprising said block bit stream (BBS).

Abstract: The invention relates to a transcoder (100) for a variable length coded data stream such as an MPEG 2 coded data stream transcoder (100) comprises a receiver (101) which receives the variable length coded data stream. The receiver (101) is connected to a significance processor (107) that determines if a variable length coded coefficient is significant or less significant. The significance processor (107) is connected to a truncation processor (111) which truncates the less significant coefficients. The trancoder further comprises an encode processor (109) which generates a transcoded data stream from the original significant coefficients and the truncated less significant coefficients. All processing may be performed exclusively in the variable length code domain thereby providing a low complexity and high speed transcoder.

Abstract: A video encoder comprises a video frame receiver (101) connected to a processor (103) deriving relative frames from the received video frames and predicted frames. The processor is connected to a Discrete Fourier Transform (DCT) processor (105) which again is connected to a quantiser (107) for generating quantised spatial frequency coefficients for the relative frame. The output of the quantiser (107) is fed to a splitter that splits the data subset having low frequency components and a second data subset having frequency components. The first subset is used in the encoding loop comprising an inverse quantiser (111), inverse DCT processor (113), motion compensation processor (115, 117) and predicted frame processor (104). Hence, the encoding loop is simplified by only considering a reduced data set for each frame. A transmitter (119) transmits the video data as a progressively scalable stream for both the first and second data subsets.