Patents by Inventor Joern Ostermann
Joern Ostermann has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Patent number: 7760204Abstract: An animation wireframe is modified with three-dimensional (3D) range and color data having a corresponding shape surface. The animation wireframe is vertically scaled based on distances between consecutive features within the 3D range and color data and corresponding distances within the generic animation wireframe. For each animation wireframe point, the location of the animation wireframe point is adjusted to coincide with a point on the shape surface. The shape surface point lies along a scaling line connecting the animation wireframe point, the shape surface point and an origin point. The scaling line is within a horizontal point.Type: GrantFiled: April 3, 2008Date of Patent: July 20, 2010Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.Inventor: Joern Ostermann
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Publication number: 20100114579Abstract: A computing device and computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to customize a voice in a multi-media message created by a sender for a recipient, the multi-media message comprising a text message from the sender to be delivered by an animated entity. The instructions comprise receiving from the sender inserted voice emoticons, which may be repeated, into the text message associated with parameters of a voice used by an animated entity to deliver the text message; and transmitting the text message such that a recipient device can deliver the multi-media message at a variable level associated with a number of times a respective voice emoticon is repeated.Type: ApplicationFiled: December 29, 2009Publication date: May 6, 2010Applicant: AT & T Corp.Inventors: Joern Ostermann, Mehmet Reha Civanlar, Hans Peter Graf, Thomas M. Isaacson
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Publication number: 20100106722Abstract: A method and system for description of synthetic audiovisual content makes it easier for humans, software components or devices to identify, manage, categorize, search, browse and retrieve such content. For instance, a user may wish to search for specific synthetic audiovisual objects in digital libraries, Internet web sites or broadcast media; such a search is enabled by the invention. Key characteristics of synthetic audiovisual content itself such as the underlying 2d or 3d models and parameters for animation of these models are used to describe it. More precisely, to represent features of synthetic audiovisual content, depending on the description scheme to be used, a number of descriptors are selected and assigned values. The description scheme instantiated with descriptor values is used to generate the description, which is then stored for actual use during query/search.Type: ApplicationFiled: December 29, 2009Publication date: April 29, 2010Applicant: AT&T Corp.Inventors: Qian Huang, Joern Ostermann, Atul Puri, Raj Kumar Rajendran
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Patent number: 7697668Abstract: A computing device and computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to customize a voice in a multi-media message created by a sender for a recipient, the multi-media message comprising a text message from the sender to be delivered by an animated entity. The instructions comprise receiving from the sender inserted voice emoticons, which may be repeated, into the text message associated with parameters of a voice used by an animated entity to deliver the text message; and transmitting the text message such that a recipient device can deliver the multi-media message at a variable level associated with a number of times a respective voice emoticon is repeated.Type: GrantFiled: August 3, 2005Date of Patent: April 13, 2010Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.Inventors: Joern Ostermann, Mehmat Reha Civanlar, Hans Peter Graf, Thomas M. Isaacson
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Publication number: 20100076750Abstract: Methods and apparatus for rendering a talking head on a client device are disclosed. The client device has a client cache capable of storing audio/visual data associated with rendering the talking head. The method comprises storing sentences in a client cache of a client device that relate to bridging delays in a dialog, storing sentence templates to be used in dialogs, generating a talking head response to a user inquiry from the client device, and determining whether sentences or stored templates stored in the client cache relate to the talking head response. If the stored sentences or stored templates relate to the talking head response, the method comprises instructing the client device to use the appropriate stored sentence or template from the client cache to render at least a part of the talking head response and transmitting a portion of the talking head response not stored in the client cache, if any, to the client device to render a complete talking head response.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 30, 2009Publication date: March 25, 2010Applicant: AT&T Corp.Inventors: Eric Cosatto, Hans Peter Graf, Joern Ostermann
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Patent number: 7673239Abstract: A method and system for description of synthetic audiovisual content makes it easier for humans, software components or devices to identify, manage, categorize, search, browse and retrieve such content. For instance, a user may wish to search for specific synthetic audiovisual objects in digital libraries, Internet web sites or broadcast media; such a search is enabled by the invention. Key characteristics of synthetic audiovisual content itself such as the underlying 2d or 3d models and parameters for animation of these models are used to describe it. More precisely, to represent features of synthetic audiovisual content, depending on the description scheme to be used, a number of descriptors are selected and assigned values. The description scheme instantiated with descriptor values is used to generate the description, which is then stored for actual use during query/search.Type: GrantFiled: June 30, 2003Date of Patent: March 2, 2010Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Propery II, L.P.Inventors: Qian Huang, Joern Ostermann, Atul Puri, Raj Kumar Rajendran
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Patent number: 7671861Abstract: A method of creating an animated entity for delivering a multi-media message from a sender to a recipient comprises receiving from the sender an image file to a server, the image file having associated sender-assigned name, gender, category and indexing information. The server presents to the sender the image file and a group of generic face model templates. After the sender selects one of the generic face model templates, the server presents the image file and the selected model template to the sender and requests the sender to mark features on the image file. After the sender marks the image file, the server presents to the sender a preview of at least one expression associated with the marked image file. If the user does not accept the image file after the preview, the server presents again the image file and selected model template for the sender to redo or add marked features on the image file.Type: GrantFiled: November 2, 2001Date of Patent: March 2, 2010Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.Inventors: Joern Ostermann, Mehmet Reha Civanlar, Ana Cristina Andres del Valle, Patrick Haffner
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SYSTEM AND METHOD OF CUSTOMIZING ANIMATED ENTITIES FOR USE IN A MULTIMEDIA COMMUNICATION APPLICATION
Publication number: 20100042697Abstract: In an embodiment, a method is provided for creating a personal animated entity for delivering a multi-media message from a sender to a recipient. An image file from the sender may be received by a server. The image file may include an image of an entity. The sender may be requested to provide input with respect to facial features of the image of the entity in preparation for animating the image of the entity. After the sender provides the input with respect to the facial features of the image of the entity, the image of the entity may be presented as a personal animated entity to the sender to preview. Upon approval of the preview from the sender, the image of the entity may be presented as a sender-selectable personal animated entity for delivering the multi-media message to the recipient.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 20, 2009Publication date: February 18, 2010Applicant: AT&T Corp.Inventors: Joern Ostermann, Mehmet Reha Civanlar, Ana Cristina Andres del Valle, Patrick Haffner -
Patent number: 7627478Abstract: Methods and apparatus for rendering a talking head on a client device are disclosed. The client device has a client cache capable of storing audio/visual data associated with rendering the talking head. The method comprises storing sentences in a client cache of a client device that relate to bridging delays in a dialog, storing sentence templates to be used in dialogs, generating a talking head response to a user inquiry from the client device, and determining whether sentences or stored templates stored in the client cache relate to the talking head response. If the stored sentences or stored templates relate to the talking head response, the method comprises instructing the client device to use the appropriate stored sentence or template from the client cache to render at least a part of the talking head response and transmitting a portion of the talking head response not stored in the client cache, if any, to the client device to render a complete talking head response.Type: GrantFiled: July 16, 2007Date of Patent: December 1, 2009Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.Inventors: Eric Cosatto, Hans Peter Graf, Joern Ostermann
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Patent number: 7609270Abstract: In an embodiment, a method is provided for creating a personal animated entity for delivering a multi-media message from a sender to a recipient. An image file from the sender may be received by a server. The image file may include an image of an entity. The sender may be requested to provide input with respect to facial features of the image of the entity in preparation for animating the image of the entity. After the sender provides the input with respect to the facial features of the image of the entity, the image of the entity may be presented as a personal animated entity to the sender to preview. Upon approval of the preview from the sender, the image of the entity may be presented as a sender-selectable personal animated entity for delivering the multi-media message to the recipient.Type: GrantFiled: April 28, 2008Date of Patent: October 27, 2009Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.Inventors: Joern Ostermann, Mehmet Reha Civanlar, Ana Cristina Andres del Valle, Patrick Haffner
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Patent number: 7584105Abstract: According to MPEG-4's TTS architecture, facial animation can be driven by two streams simultaneously—text, and Facial Animation Parameters. In this architecture, text input is sent to a Text-To-Speech converter at a decoder that drives the mouth shapes of the face. Facial Animation Parameters are sent from an encoder to the face over the communication channel. The present invention includes codes (known as bookmarks) in the text string transmitted to the Text-to-Speech converter, which bookmarks are placed between words as well as inside them. According to the present invention, the bookmarks carry an encoder time stamp. Due to the nature of text-to-speech conversion, the encoder time stamp does not relate to real-world time, and should be interpreted as a counter. In addition, the Facial Animation Parameter stream carries the same encoder time stamp found in the bookmark of the text.Type: GrantFiled: October 31, 2007Date of Patent: September 1, 2009Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.Inventors: Andrea Basso, Mark Charles Beutnagel, Joern Ostermann
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Publication number: 20090022220Abstract: Standard video compression techniques apply motion-compensated prediction combined with transform coding of the prediction error. In the context of prediction with fractional-pel motion vector resolution it was shown, that aliasing components contained in an image signal are limiting the prediction efficiency obtained by motion compensation. In order to consider aliasing, quantization and motion estimation errors, camera noise, etc., we analytically developed a two dimensional (2D) non-separable interpolation filter, which is independently calculated for each frame by minimizing the prediction error energy. For every fractional-pel position to be interpolated, an individual set of 2D filter coefficients is determined. Since transmitting filter coefficients as side information results in an additional bit rate, which is almost constant for different image resolutions and total bit rates, the loss in coding gain increases when total bit rates sink.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 13, 2006Publication date: January 22, 2009Applicant: UNIVERSITAET HANNOVERInventors: Yuri Vatis, Bernd Edler, Ingolf Wassermann, Dieu Thanh Nguyen, Joern Ostermann
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Publication number: 20080312930Abstract: According to MPEG-4's TTS architecture, facial animation can be driven by two streams simultaneously—text, and Facial Animation Parameters. In this architecture, text input is sent to a Text-To-Speech converter at a decoder that drives the mouth shapes of the face. Facial Animation Parameters are sent from an encoder to the face over the communication channel. The present invention includes codes (known as bookmarks) in the text string transmitted to the Text-to-Speech converter, which bookmarks are placed between words as well as inside them. According to the present invention, the bookmarks carry an encoder time stamp. Due to the nature of text-to-speech conversion, the encoder time stamp does not relate to real-world time, and should be interpreted as a counter. In addition, the Facial Animation Parameter stream carries the same encoder time stamp found in the bookmark of the text.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 18, 2008Publication date: December 18, 2008Applicant: AT&T Corp.Inventors: Andrea Basso, Mark Charles Beutnagel, Joern Ostermann
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Publication number: 20080201442Abstract: In an embodiment, a method is provided for creating a personal animated entity for delivering a multi-media message from a sender to a recipient. An image file from the sender may be received by a server. The image file may include an image of an entity. The sender may be requested to provide input with respect to facial features of the image of the entity in preparation for animating the image of the entity. After the sender provides the input with respect to the facial features of the image of the entity, the image of the entity may be presented as a personal animated entity to the sender to preview. Upon approval of the preview from the sender, the image of the entity may be presented as a sender-selectable personal animated entity for delivering the multi-media message to the recipient.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 28, 2008Publication date: August 21, 2008Applicant: AT & T Corp.Inventors: Joern Ostermann, Mehmet Reha Civanlar, Ana Cristina Andres del Valle, Patrick Haffner
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Publication number: 20080180435Abstract: An animation wireframe is modified with three-dimensional (3D) range and color data having a corresponding shape surface. The animation wireframe is vertically scaled based on distances between consecutive features within the 3D range and color data and corresponding distances within the generic animation wireframe. For each animation wireframe point, the location of the animation wireframe point is adjusted to coincide with a point on the shape surface. The shape surface point lies along a scaling line connecting the animation wireframe point, the shape surface point and an origin point. The scaling line is within a horizontal point.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 3, 2008Publication date: July 31, 2008Applicant: AT&T Corp.Inventor: Joern Ostermann
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Patent number: 7379066Abstract: In an embodiment, a method is provided for creating a personal animated entity for delivering a multi-media message from a sender to a recipient. An image file from the sender may be received by a server. The image file may include an image of an entity. The sender may be requested to provide input with respect to facial features of the image of the entity in preparation for animating the image of the entity. After the sender provides the input with respect to the facial features of the image of the entity, the image of the entity may be presented as a personal animated entity to the sender to preview. Upon approval of the preview from the sender, the image of the entity may be presented as a sender-selectable personal animated entity for delivering the multi-media message to the recipient.Type: GrantFiled: May 26, 2006Date of Patent: May 27, 2008Assignee: AT&T Corp.Inventors: Joern Ostermann, Mehmet Reha Civanlar, Ana Cristina Andres del Valle, Patrick Haffner
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Publication number: 20080114723Abstract: A method and apparatus for displaying received data, analyze the quality of the displayed data formulating a media-parameter suggestion for the encoder to alter the characteristics of data to be sent to the receiver, and sending from the receiver, the formulated suggestion.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 31, 2007Publication date: May 15, 2008Applicant: AT&T Corp.Inventors: Andrea Basso, Erich Haratsch, Barin Geoffry Haskell, Joern Ostermann
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Patent number: 7365749Abstract: An animation wireframe is modified with three-dimensional (3D) range and color data having a corresponding shape surface. The animation wireframe is vertically scaled based on distances between consecutive features within the 3D range and color data and corresponding distances within the generic animation wireframe. For each animation wireframe point, the location of the animation wireframe point is adjusted to coincide with a point on the shape surface. The shape surface point lies along a scaling line connecting the animation wireframe point, the shape surface point and an origin point. The scaling line is within a horizontal point.Type: GrantFiled: August 15, 2006Date of Patent: April 29, 2008Assignee: AT&T Corp.Inventor: Joern Ostermann
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Patent number: 7366670Abstract: Facial animation in MPEG-4 can be driven by a text stream and a Facial Animation Parameters (FAP) stream. Text input is sent to a TTS converter that drives the mouth shapes of the face. FAPs are sent from an encoder to the face over the communication channel. Disclosed are codes bookmarks in the text string transmitted to the TTS converter. Bookmarks are placed between and inside words and carry an encoder time stamp. The encoder time stamp does not relate to real-world time. The FAP stream carries the same encoder time stamp found in the bookmark of the text. The system reads the bookmark and provides the encoder time stamp as well as a real-time time stamp to the facial animation system. The facial animation system associates the correct facial animation parameter with the real-time time stamp using the encoder time stamp of the bookmark as a reference.Type: GrantFiled: August 11, 2006Date of Patent: April 29, 2008Assignee: AT&T Corp.Inventors: Andrea Basso, Mark Charles Beutnagel, Joern Ostermann
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Publication number: 20080059194Abstract: According to MPEG-4's TTS architecture, facial animation can be driven by two streams simultaneously—text, and Facial Animation Parameters. In this architecture, text input is sent to a Text-To-Speech converter at a decoder that drives the mouth shapes of the face. Facial Animation Parameters are sent from an encoder to the face over the communication channel. The present invention includes codes (known as bookmarks) in the text string transmitted to the Text-to-Speech converter, which bookmarks are placed between words as well as inside them. According to the present invention, the bookmarks carry an encoder time stamp. Due to the nature of text-to-speech conversion, the encoder time stamp does not relate to real-world time, and should be interpreted as a counter. In addition, the Facial Animation Parameter stream carries the same encoder time stamp found in the bookmark of the text.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 31, 2007Publication date: March 6, 2008Applicant: AT&T Corp.Inventors: Andrea Basso, Mark Beutnagel, Joern Ostermann