Abstract: An automated guidance system for a moving frame. The automated guidance system has an imaging system disposed on the frame; a motion sensing system coupled to the frame and configured for sensing movement of the frame; and a processor communicably connected to the vision system for receiving image data from the vision system and generating optical flow from image data of frame surrounding. The processor is communicably connected to the motion sensing system for receiving motion data of the frame from the motion sensing system. The processor is configured for determining, from kinematically aided dense optical flow correction to frame kinematic errors, due to errors in motion data from the motion sensing system.

Abstract: An automated guidance system for a moving frame. The automated guidance system has an imaging system disposed on the frame; a motion sensing system coupled to the frame and configured for sensing movement of the frame; and a processor communicably connected to the vision system for receiving image data from the vision system and generating optical flow from image data of frame surrounding. The processor is communicably connected to the motion sensing system for receiving motion data of the frame from the motion sensing system. The processor is configured for determining, from kinematically aided dense optical flow correction to frame kinematic errors, due to errors in motion data from the motion sensing system.

Abstract: A method of establishing a communications link uses automatic sensing of a computer user's presence and activity state to record user attributes in a form accessible to other computers in a communications network. Such automatic sensing may include keyboard/mouse monitors, cameras with associated image processing algorithms, speech detectors, RF radiation detectors, and infrared sensors. Preferably, the attribute recording is done in a server process which can be accessed by other computer programs. A first application of this method is to inform persons at remote locations whether the party to be called is available to receive a call. A second application of the method is to use a Connection Agent to determine whether all desired participants for a conference, or at least a quorum of them, are present and available, so that the conference can be started.

Abstract: A videoconferencing method automatically detects, within an image generated by a camera, locations and relative sizes of faces. Based upon the detection, a control system tracks each face and keeps a camera pointed at and focused on each face, regardless of movement about a room or other space. Preferably, multiple cameras are used, and an automatic algorithm selects a best face image and resizes the face image to substantially fill a transmitted frame. Preferably, an image encoding algorithm adjusts encoding parameters to match a currently amount of bandwidth available from a transmission network. Brightness, contrast, and color balance are automatically adjusted. As a result of these automatic adjustments, participants in a video conference have freedom to move around, yet remain visible and audible to other participants.

Abstract: A system and method for acquiring, processing, and comparing an image with a stored image to determine if a match exists. The system employs a transformation into the frequency domain to more efficiently correlate the acquired image with the set of stored images. The image and stored image pair with the highest correlation value is considered to be the best matched pair. The facial recognition system determines the match in substantially real time. In particular, the present invention employs a motion detection stage, blob stage and a color matching stage at the input to localize a region of interest (ROI) in the image. The ROI is then processed by the system to locate the head, and then the eyes, in the image by employing a series of templates, such as eigen templates. The system then thresholds the resultant eigenimage to determine if the acquired image matches a pre-stored image.

Abstract: A system and corresponding method for providing security against unwanted viewing of information being displayed on a video terminal of a computer workstation, the computer workstation including an input device such as a keyboard, the system including: a camera, responsive to the presence of any user of the computer workstation, the camera for providing from time to time a camera image suitable for indicating whether at the time a user is viewing the video terminal; a guard module, hosted by the workstation, responsive to the camera image, and further responsive to a notice of activity on an input device, the notice provided by the operating system of the workstation, for providing in pre-determined cases a command to the operating system to open a covering window and to display on the video terminal the covering window as the active window, the covering window of sufficient size to cover substantially all of the information bearing regions being displayed on the video terminal; wherein the pre-determined cas

Abstract: A method of establishing a communications link uses automatic sensing of a computer user's presence and activity state to record user attributes in a form accessible to other computers in a communications network. Such automatic sensing may include keyboard/mouse monitors, cameras with associated image processing algorithms, speech detectors, RF radiation detectors, and infra-red sensors. Preferably, the attribute recording is done in a server process which can be accessed by other computer programs. A first application of this method is to inform persons at remote locations whether the party to be called is available to receive a call. A second application of the method is to use a Connection Agent to determine whether all desired participants for a conference, or at least a quorum of them, are present and available, so that the conference can be started.

Abstract: A biometric identification method of identifying a person combines facial identification steps with audio identification steps. In order to reduce vulnerability of a recognition system to deception using photographs or even three-dimensional masks or replicas, the system uses a sequence of images to verify that lips and chin are moving as a predetermined sequence of sounds are uttered by a person who desires to be identified. In order to compensate for variations in speed of making the utterance, a dynamic time warping algorithm is used to normalize length of the input utterance to match the length of a model utterance previously stored for the person. In order to prevent deception based on two-dimensional images, preferably two cameras pointed in different directions are used for facial recognition.

Abstract: A video conferencing method automatically detects, within an image generated by a camera, locations and relative sizes of faces. Based upon the detection, a control system tracks each face and keeps a camera pointed at and focused on each face, regardless of movement about a room or other space. Preferably, multiple cameras are used, and an automatic algorithm selects a best face image and resizes the face image to substantially fill a transmitted frame. Preferably, an image encoding algorithm adjusts encoding parameters to match a currently amount of bandwidth available from a transmission network. Brightness, contrast, and color balance are automatically adjusted. As a result of these automatic adjustments, participants in a video conference have freedom to move around, yet remain visible and audible to other participants.