Patents by Inventor Sotaro Tsukizawa

Sotaro Tsukizawa 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).

  • Patent number: 8405714
    Abstract: Provided is a pupil hidden state detecting apparatus which can detect directly a hidden state of a pupil without detecting a hiding object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2013
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Yukihiro Matsushima, Sotaro Tsukizawa
  • Patent number: 8406479
    Abstract: Provided is a visual axis direction detection device capable of obtaining a highly accurate visual axis direction detection result without performing a particular calibration for each of examinees. The device (100) includes: a feature calculation unit (160) which calculates as a reference position, a 3D position of the center of a face of an examinee whose visual axis direction is to be detected, from a 3D position of two face parts positioned symmetrically, and calculates as a feature position, a 3D position of the center of the right and left pupils of the examinee in the horizontal direction; a visual axis direction feature amount calculation unit (172) for calculating a shift amount of the feature position from the reference position in the horizontal direction as a visual axis direction feature amount; and a visual axis vector calculation unit (173) for calculating the visual axis direction of the examinee according to the visual axis direction feature amount.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2013
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventor: Sotaro Tsukizawa
  • Publication number: 20120177266
    Abstract: A pupil detection device and a pupil detection method, which are capable of stably detecting the pupil by actively using information of cornea-reflected image even when most of the pupil is hidden by the cornea-reflected image. In pupil detection device (100), peripheral state evaluating section (105) sets a plurality of line segments having a reference point of a cornea-reflected image as one end and having a predetermined length, and calculates a luminance evaluation value based on luminance of each pixel in each line segment and reference luminance. Pupil center straight line calculation section (106) specifies a pupil center straight line passing through a center of a pupil image from among a plurality of line segments based on a luminance evaluation value. Pupil search section (107) detects a pupil image based on a luminance state around the pupil center straight line.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 15, 2011
    Publication date: July 12, 2012
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Sotaro Tsukizawa, Kenji Oka
  • Publication number: 20120170027
    Abstract: Disclosed are an ambient light reflection determination apparatus and an ambient light reflection determination method enabling to determine reflection without using an edge and even in a case where luminance of a reflection generating part in eyeglasses is low. In a reflection determination apparatus (100), a luminance histogram calculation section (102) calculates a luminance histogram representing a luminance distribution of an eye area image, a difference calculation section (104) calculates a difference histogram by finding a difference between the two luminance histograms calculated from the two eye area images having different photographing timings, an evaluation value calculation section (105) calculates an evaluation value regarding reflection of ambient light based on the difference histogram and a weight in accordance with luminance, and a reflection determination section (107) determines the reflection of ambient light based on the calculated evaluation value.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 7, 2011
    Publication date: July 5, 2012
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Sotaro Tsukizawa, Kenji Oka
  • Publication number: 20120076438
    Abstract: The visual line estimating apparatus 200 comprises: an image inputting section 201 operable to take an image of a human; a visual line measurement section 202 operable to measure a direction of a visual line on the basis of the taken image; a visual line measuring result storing section 211 operable to store therein visual line measuring results previously measured; a representative value extracting section 212 operable to extract a previous representative value; and a visual line determining section 213 operable to judge whether or not a difference between the representative value and the visual line measuring result is lower than a predetermined threshold to determine a visual line estimating result from the representative value and the visual line measuring result.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 22, 2011
    Publication date: March 29, 2012
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Kenji Oka, Sotaro Tsukizawa
  • Publication number: 20110298913
    Abstract: Provided is a pupil hidden state detecting apparatus which can detect directly a hidden state of a pupil without detecting a hiding object.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 29, 2011
    Publication date: December 8, 2011
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Yukihiro Matsushima, Sotaro Tsukizawa
  • Publication number: 20110249868
    Abstract: Provided are a line-of-sight direction determination device and a line-of-sight direction determination method capable of highly precisely and accurately determining a line-of-sight direction from immediately after start of measurement without indication of an object to be carefully observed and adjustment work done in advance. The line-of-sight direction determination device (100) comprises: a line-symmetric position determination unit (150) for determining that the corneal reflection image of a left eye or a right eye is located at a line-symmetric position with respect to the center line of the pupils of the right and left eyes; and a line-of-sight direction determination unit (170) for determining, from the line-symmetric position determination result, a line-of-sight direction at a specific position including the installation position of an imaging unit (111) or an irradiation unit (112) at the substantially same position as the imaging unit (111).
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 25, 2009
    Publication date: October 13, 2011
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Sotaro Tsukizawa, Kensuke Maruya
  • Patent number: 7889244
    Abstract: There is provided an image processing apparatus for performing a stable attention condition determination, regardless of the shape and surrounding environment of an object of interest and regardless that the object is unknown or known. The image processing apparatus comprises a direction detector, a displacement detector, and an attention condition determiner. The direction detector detects, from a certain image including a person image, the direction information in two body regions of a person represented by the person image. The displacement detector calculates, from the two direction information, a displacement ratio that is the ratio between the two direction displacements. The attention condition determiner determines, according to a first and a second displacement ratio, how much the person pays attention to a certain object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2011
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Sotaro Tsukizawa, Keisuke Hayata, Megumi Yamaoka
  • Publication number: 20090304232
    Abstract: Provided is a visual axis direction detection device capable of obtaining a highly accurate visual axis direction detection result without performing a particular calibration for each of examinees. The device (100) includes: a feature calculation unit (160) which calculates as a reference position, a 3D position of the center of a face of an examinee whose visual axis direction is to be detected, from a 3D position of two face parts positioned symmetrically, and calculates as a feature position, a 3D position of the center of the right and left pupils of the examinee in the horizontal direction; a visual axis direction feature amount calculation unit (172) for calculating a shift amount of the feature position from the reference position in the horizontal direction as a visual axis direction feature amount; and a visual axis vector calculation unit (173) for calculating the visual axis direction of the examinee according to the visual axis direction feature amount.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 13, 2007
    Publication date: December 10, 2009
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventor: Sotaro Tsukizawa
  • Publication number: 20090273687
    Abstract: There is provided an image processing apparatus for performing a stable attention condition determination, regardless of the shape and surrounding environment of an object of interest and regardless that the object is unknown or known. The image processing apparatus comprises a direction detector, a displacement detector, and an attention condition determiner. The direction detector detects, from a certain image including a person image, the direction information in two body regions of a person represented by the person image. The displacement detector calculates, from the two direction information, a displacement ratio that is the ratio between the two direction displacements. The attention condition determiner determines, according to a first and a second displacement ratio, how much the person pays attention to a certain object.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 26, 2006
    Publication date: November 5, 2009
    Applicant: MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Sotaro Tsukizawa, Keisuke Hayata, Megumi Yamaoka