Patents by Inventor Stephen Lin

Stephen Lin 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: 9508131
    Abstract: Removal of the effects of dust or other impurities on image data is described. In one example, a model of artifact formation from sensor dust is determined. From the model of artifact formation, contextual information in the image and a color consistency constraint may be applied on the dust to remove the dust artifacts. Artifacts may also be removed from multiple images from the same or different cameras or camera settings.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Changyin Zhou
  • Patent number: 9057206
    Abstract: Portable combination umbrella and tent and method of providing and making the same are disclosed. The umbrella has a frame, a handle, a first tier covering, and a second tier covering. The first tier covering and the second tier covering are coupled to the frame so that an overlapping area exists between the first tier covering and the second tier covering. A tent support is movably coupled to the frame. The tent support can be moved and adjusted in a number of tent positions and also stowed away as part of the umbrella. A tent covering is coupled to the umbrella. The tent support can support the tent covering in the tent positions. At least part of the tent covering can be folded up and stored in the overlapping area so that the portable umbrella and tent can be used as an umbrella.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2015
    Inventor: Matthew Stephen Lin
  • Publication number: 20150110417
    Abstract: Removal of the effects of dust or other impurities on image data is described. In one example, a model of artifact formation from sensor dust is determined. From the model of artifact formation, contextual information in the image and a color consistency constraint may be applied on the dust to remove the dust artifacts. Artifacts may also be removed from multiple images from the same or different cameras or camera settings.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 31, 2014
    Publication date: April 23, 2015
    Inventors: Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Changyin Zhou
  • Patent number: 8948538
    Abstract: Removal of the effects of dust or other impurities on image data is described. In one example, a model of artifact formation from sensor dust is determined. From the model of artifact formation, contextual information in the image and a color consistency constraint may be applied on the dust to remove the dust artifacts. Artifacts may also be removed from multiple images from the same or different cameras or camera settings.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Changyin Zhou
  • Publication number: 20140261597
    Abstract: Portable combination umbrella and tent and method of providing and making the same are disclosed. The umbrella has a frame, a handle, a first tier covering, and a second tier covering. The first tier covering and the second tier covering are coupled to the frame so that an overlapping area exists between the first tier covering and the second tier covering. A tent support is movably coupled to the frame. The tent support can be moved and adjusted in a number of tent positions and also stowed away as part of the umbrella. A tent covering is coupled to the umbrella. The tent support can support the tent covering in the tent positions. At least part of the tent covering can be folded up and stored in the overlapping area so that the portable umbrella and tent can be used as an umbrella.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Publication date: September 18, 2014
    Inventor: Matthew Stephen Lin
  • Publication number: 20120288196
    Abstract: Removal of the effects of dust or other impurities on image data is described. In one example, a model of artifact formation from sensor dust is determined. From the model of artifact formation, contextual information in the image and a color consistency constraint may be applied on the dust to remove the dust artifacts. Artifacts may also be removed from multiple images from the same or different cameras or camera settings.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 23, 2012
    Publication date: November 15, 2012
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Changyin Zhou
  • Patent number: 8244057
    Abstract: Removal of the effects of dust or other impurities on image data is described. In one example, a model of artifact formation from sensor dust is determined. From the model of artifact formation, contextual information in the image and a color consistency constraint may be applied on the dust to remove the dust artifacts. Artifacts may also be removed from multiple images from the same or different cameras or camera settings.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 14, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Changyin Zhou
  • Patent number: 7933442
    Abstract: A method for modeling a time-variant appearance of a material is described. A sample analysis of a material sample is performed, wherein the sample analysis orders surface points of the material sample with respect to weathering from data captured at a single instant in time. An appearance synthesis using the sample analysis is performed, wherein the appearance synthesis generates a time-variant sequence of frames for weathering an object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2007
    Date of Patent: April 26, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jiaping Wang, Xin Tong, Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Heung-Yeung Shum
  • Publication number: 20100085360
    Abstract: Techniques are described for rendering a volume of scattering media, in particular by computing radiances of points or voxels in the scattering media. A set of sample points in the scattering media are found. Radiances of the sample points are computed. Radiance gradients of the sample points are computed from the radiances. The radiances and gradients are used to interpolate radiances throughout the scattering media. The set of sample points may be computed in an iterative dynamic manner in order to concentrate samples near features (e.g., shadow edges) of the scattering media.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 4, 2008
    Publication date: April 8, 2010
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Zhong Ren, Kun Zhou, Stephen Lin, Baining Guo
  • Patent number: 7663623
    Abstract: A method, device and system is provided for providing global illumination of a scene. For example, global illumination may be provided in a rendered 3-dimensional image that may contain objects and/or light sources. Radiance functions or visibility functions may further be represented by scaling of spherical harmonics functions in the spherical harmonics domain. For example, scaling of spherical harmonics coefficients corresponding to a spherical function may be performed based on a spherical harmonics scaling transformation matrix based on an angular scaling function.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2010
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Kun Zhou, Jiaping Wang, Stephen Lin, Baining Guo
  • Patent number: 7609264
    Abstract: A shell radiance texture function (SRTF) is defined to record an outgoing radiance from a base volume of an object to be rendered. Using the SRTF, radiance values are precomputed and stored for the base volume. The object is rendered using the precomputed radiance values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2006
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2009
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Xin Tong, Yanyun Chen, Baining Guo, Heung-Yeung Shum, Stephen Lin, Ying Song
  • Patent number: 7548661
    Abstract: A system and process for determining the vignetting function of an image and using the function to correct for the vignetting is presented. The image can be any arbitrary image and no other images are required. The system and process is designed to handle both textured and untextured segments in order to maximize the use of available information. To extract vignetting information from an image, segmentation techniques are employed that locate image segments with reliable data for vignetting estimation. Within each image segment, the system and process capitalizes on frequency characteristics and physical properties of vignetting to distinguish it from other sources of intensity variation. The vignetting data acquired from segments are weighted according to a presented reliability measure to promote robustness in estimation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2006
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2009
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Sing Bing Kang, Yuanjie Zheng
  • Publication number: 20080304764
    Abstract: Removal of the effects of dust or other impurities on image data is described. In one example, a model of artifact formation from sensor dust is determined. From the model of artifact formation, contextual information in the image and a color consistency constraint may be applied on the dust to remove the dust artifacts. Artifacts may also be removed from multiple images from the same or different cameras or camera settings.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 30, 2007
    Publication date: December 11, 2008
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Changyin Zhou
  • Publication number: 20080240540
    Abstract: A method for modeling a time-variant appearance of a material is described. A sample analysis of a material sample is performed, wherein the sample analysis orders surface points of the material sample with respect to weathering from data captured at a single instant in time. An appearance synthesis using the sample analysis is performed, wherein the appearance synthesis generates a time-variant sequence of frames for weathering an object.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 30, 2007
    Publication date: October 2, 2008
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jiaping Wang, Xin Tong, Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Heung-Yeung Shum
  • Publication number: 20080143719
    Abstract: A method, device and system is provided for providing global illumination of a scene. For example, global illumination may be provided in a rendered 3-dimensional image that may contain objects and/or light sources. Radiance functions or visibility functions may further be represented by scaling of spherical harmonics functions in the spherical harmonics domain. For example, scaling of spherical harmonics coefficients corresponding to a spherical function may be performed based on a spherical harmonics scaling transformation matrix based on an angular scaling function.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 18, 2006
    Publication date: June 19, 2008
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Kun Zhou, Jiaping Wang, Stephen Lin, Baining Guo
  • Patent number: 7310101
    Abstract: A “mesostructure renderer” uses pre-computed multi-dimensional “generalized displacement maps” (GDM) to provide real-time rendering of general non-height-field mesostructures on both open and closed surfaces of arbitrary geometry. In general, the GDM represents the distance to solid mesostructure along any ray cast from any point within a volumetric sample. Given the pre-computed GDM, the mesostructure renderer then computes mesostructure visibility jointly in object space and texture space, thereby enabling both control of texture distortion and efficient computation of texture coordinates and shadowing. Further, in one embodiment, the mesostructure renderer uses the GDM to render mesostructures with either local or global illumination as a per-pixel process using conventional computer graphics hardware to accelerate the real-time rendering of the mesostructures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2004
    Date of Patent: December 18, 2007
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Xi Wang, Xin Tong, Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Heung-Yeung Shum
  • Patent number: 7286135
    Abstract: A “mesostructure renderer” uses pre-computed multi-dimensional “generalized displacement maps” (GDM) to provide real-time rendering of general non-height-field mesostructures on both open and closed surfaces of arbitrary geometry. In general, the GDM represents the distance to solid mesostructure along any ray cast from any point within a volumetric sample. Given the pre-computed GDM, the mesostructure renderer then computes mesostructure visibility jointly in object space and texture space, thereby enabling both control of texture distortion and efficient computation of texture coordinates and shadowing. Further, in one embodiment, the mesostructure renderer uses the GDM to render mesostructures with either local or global illumination as a per-pixel process using conventional computer graphics hardware to accelerate the real-time rendering of the mesostructures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2004
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2007
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Xi Wang, Xin Tong, Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Heung-Yeung Shum
  • Publication number: 20070229502
    Abstract: A shell radiance texture function (SRTF) is defined to record an outgoing radiance from a base volume of an object to be rendered. Using the SRTF, radiance values are precomputed and stored for the base volume. The object is rendered using the precomputed radiance values.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 29, 2006
    Publication date: October 4, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Xin Tong, Yanyun Chen, Baining Guo, Heung-Yeung Shum, Stephen Lin, Ying Song
  • Publication number: 20070216680
    Abstract: The present surface detail rendering technique provides an efficient technique for applying a mesostructure to a macrostructure for an object that minimizes the amount of memory required for pre-computed data. A leap texture is pre-computed for a mesostructure by classifying each voxel in the mesostructure geometry and assigning a value in the leap texture based upon the classification. The value in the leap texture represents a distance to jump along a ray cast in any view direction when a model is decorated with the mesostructure geometry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 17, 2006
    Publication date: September 20, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Xi Wang, Xin Tong, Stephen Lin, Baining Guo
  • Publication number: 20070146506
    Abstract: A system and process for determining the vignetting function of an image and using the function to correct for the vignetting is presented. The image can be any arbitrary image and no other images are required. The system and process is designed to handle both textured and untextured segments in order to maximize the use of available information. To extract vignetting information from an image, segmentation techniques are employed that locate image segments with reliable data for vignetting estimation. Within each image segment, the system and process capitalizes on frequency characteristics and physical properties of vignetting to distinguish it from other sources of intensity variation. The vignetting data acquired from segments are weighted according to a presented reliability measure to promote robustness in estimation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 17, 2006
    Publication date: June 28, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Stephen Lin, Baining Guo, Sing Kang, Yuanjie Zheng