Patents by Inventor Masafumi Wakazono

Masafumi Wakazono 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).

  • Publication number: 20120301050
    Abstract: There is provided an image processing apparatus including a control unit configured to control whether or not to set an amplification factor for amplifying a reflectance component of an image to a large enough value to give a painterly visual effect to the image, a separation unit configured to separate the image into an illumination component and the reflectance component, an amplification unit configured to amplify the reflectance component separated by the separation unit with the amplification factor controlled by the control unit, and a combination unit configured to combine the illumination component separated by the separation unit and the reflectance component amplified by the amplification unit.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 16, 2012
    Publication date: November 29, 2012
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Masafumi Wakazono
  • Publication number: 20120275724
    Abstract: There is provided an image processing apparatus that includes a pre-enlargement image processing unit that processes an image signal, based on one or more flow vectors corresponding to the image signal, and an enlargement processing unit that enlarges an image indicated by an image signal processed by the pre-enlargement image processing unit, based on the one or more flow vectors.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 19, 2012
    Publication date: November 1, 2012
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Masafumi Wakazono
  • Patent number: 8223410
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an imaging device and a method of processing an imaging result in an imaging device, and is applied to e.g. an electronic still camera to thereby allow the camera to correct image quality readily and flexibly with avoiding the deterioration of the image quality effectively. In the present invention, a three-dimensional look-up table is provided and an imaging result (Y2, Cb2, Cr2) is corrected by use of the three-dimensional look-up table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 25, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2012
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Masafumi Wakazono, Hirofumi Hayakawa, Koichiro Ishigami, Takami Mizukura, Naoya Katoh, Miyuki Okada
  • Publication number: 20120057803
    Abstract: Provided is an image processing apparatus including: a frequency value calculation section that allocates each pixel of an input image to any of respective partial regions obtained by dividing the entirety of a possible range of a luminance value into units in a luminance direction on the basis of the luminance value thereof, and allocates one pixel of the input image to partial regions when calculating frequency values representing the number of pixels allocated to the partial regions with respect to the respective partial regions, to update the frequency values of the partial regions; a characteristic value calculation section that calculates a characteristic value representing a characteristic of the partial region; and a weighted product-sum section that performs edge-preserving smoothing on the input image by weighting and averaging the characteristic values in accordance with a distance in the luminance direction, using the calculated frequency value and the calculated characteristic value.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 30, 2011
    Publication date: March 8, 2012
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Masafumi Wakazono
  • Publication number: 20110235945
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes: a representative value calculation unit calculating a representative value from an input first image signal; an interpolation unit interpolating the representative value calculated by the representative value calculation unit using a second image signal input after the first image signal; and an adjustment processing unit blending the interpolated image signal and the second image signal so that an output ratio of the image signal interpolated by the interpolation unit is smaller when a variation amount of an image corresponding to the second image signal with respect to an image corresponding to the first image signal is large in comparison to a case when the variation amount is small.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 8, 2011
    Publication date: September 29, 2011
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Masafumi Wakazono, Tomoo Mitsunaga
  • Publication number: 20100310189
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an image processing device and method, program and recording medium for achieving grayscale compression capable of suppressing image quality degradation using a simple configuration. A detection section 63 performs a detection process of a signal Y? that has been subjected to the processes of a luminance signal generating section 61 and perception equalization section 62, thus finding average intensities of lighting in bright and dark areas of an input image. A control MPU 64 finds adaptation gains kAr and kBr based on the average intensities. Processing the signal Y? with an edge-preserving LPF 65 provides a lighting component signal Y?lp. A detail extraction section 66 computes the difference between the signal Y? and lighting component signal Y?lp, thus extracting a detail component signal Y?de of the image of the signal Y?.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 12, 2008
    Publication date: December 9, 2010
    Inventors: Masafumi Wakazono, Naoya Katoh, Nobuyuki Matsushita
  • Publication number: 20100302404
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus includes a control unit for controlling a color gamut conversion method that converts a color gamut of content data into a desired color gamut in accordance with the use of the content data; and a color gamut conversion unit for performing the color gamut conversion with respect to the content data by a method based on the control of the control unit.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 4, 2010
    Publication date: December 2, 2010
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Takami Mizukura, Masafumi Wakazono
  • Patent number: 7834915
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus that processes input image data includes an exposure-correction-value acquiring unit that acquires exposure correction values at plural stages with respect to an exposure control value during imaging of the input image data, an illumination-component generating unit that generates illumination components on the basis of the input image data, a gain-amount calculating unit that multiplies each of plural weighting coefficients with a multiplication coefficient corresponding to the exposure correction value corresponding to the weighting coefficient and adds up multiplied values to calculate a gain amount, and a gain applying unit that applies, for each of pixels, the gain amount calculated by the gain-amount calculating unit to the input image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2007
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2010
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Masafumi Wakazono, Naoya Katoh
  • Publication number: 20100128332
    Abstract: An image signal processing apparatus includes the following elements. A control unit determines a gradation correction characteristic representing a conversion characteristic for correcting brightness of an input frame. A separation unit separates the determined gradation correction characteristic into a representative gradation correction value representing an amount of correction for a representative value of a main subject and a remaining gradation correction characteristic obtained by removing the representative gradation correction value from the gradation correction characteristic. A gain processing unit uniformly applies the separated representative gradation correction value to the frame as a gain. A noise reduction processing unit performs noise reduction processing on the frame to which the representative gradation correction value is applied.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 2, 2009
    Publication date: May 27, 2010
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Masafumi Wakazono, Naoya Katoh
  • Publication number: 20080187235
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus that processes input image data includes an exposure-correction-value acquiring unit that acquires exposure correction values at plural stages with respect to an exposure control value during imaging of the input image data, an illumination-component generating unit that generates illumination components on the basis of the input image data, a gain-amount calculating unit that multiplies each of plural weighting coefficients with a multiplication coefficient corresponding to the exposure correction value corresponding to the weighting coefficient and adds up multiplied values to calculate a gain amount, and a gain applying unit that applies, for each of pixels, the gain amount calculated by the gain-amount calculating unit to the input image data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 10, 2007
    Publication date: August 7, 2008
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Masafumi Wakazono, Naoya Katoh
  • Publication number: 20060274386
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an imaging device and a method of processing an imaging result in an imaging device, and is applied to e.g. an electronic still camera to thereby allow the camera to correct image quality readily and flexibly with avoiding the deterioration of the image quality effectively. In the present invention, a three-dimensional look-up table is provided and an imaging result (Y2, Cb2, Cr2) is corrected by use of the three-dimensional look-up table.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 25, 2006
    Publication date: December 7, 2006
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Masafumi Wakazono, Hirofumi Hayakawa, Koichiro Ishigami, Takami Mizukura, Naoya Katoh, Miyuki Okada