Patents by Inventor Thomas Wiegand

Thomas Wiegand 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: 11863763
    Abstract: Although wedgelet-based partitioning seems to represent a better tradeoff between side information rate on the one hand and achievable variety in partitioning possibilities on the other hand, compared to contour partitioning, the ability to alleviate the constraints of the partitioning to the extent that the partitions have to be wedgelet partitions, enables applying relatively uncomplex statistical analysis onto overlaid spatially sampled texture information in order to derive a good predictor for the bi-segmentation in a depth/disparity map. Thus, in accordance with a first aspect it is exactly the increase of the freedom which alleviates the signaling overhead provided that co-located texture information in form of a picture is present. Another aspect pertains the possibility to save side information rate involved with signaling a respective coding mode supporting irregular partitioning.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2024
    Assignee: GE Video Compression, LLC
    Inventors: Philipp Merkle, Christian Bartnik, Haricharan Lakshman, Detlev Marpe, Karsten Mueller, Thomas Wiegand, Gerhard Tech
  • Patent number: 11863770
    Abstract: An apparatus (200) for receiving an input video data stream according to an embodiment is provided. The input video data stream has a video encoded thereinto. The apparatus (200) is configured to generate an output video data stream from the input video data stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2024
    Assignee: GE Video Compression, LLC
    Inventors: Yago Sanchez De La Fuente, Karsten Sühring, Cornelius Hellge, Thomas Schierl, Robert Skupin, Thomas Wiegand
  • Publication number: 20230421806
    Abstract: To increase efficiency of a bit-depth scalable data-stream an inter-layer prediction is obtained by mapping samples of the representation of the picture or video source data with a first picture sample bit-depth from a first dynamic range corresponding to the first picture sample bit-depth to a second dynamic range greater than the first dynamic range and corresponding to a second picture sample bit-depth being higher than the first picture sample bit-depth by use of one or more global mapping functions being constant within the picture or video source data or varying at a first granularity, and a local mapping function locally modifying the one or more global mapping functions and varying at a second granularity smaller than the first granularity, with forming the quality-scalable data-stream based on the local mapping function such that the local mapping function is derivable from the quality-scalable data-stream.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 29, 2023
    Publication date: December 28, 2023
    Inventors: Thomas WIEGAND, Martin WINKEN
  • Publication number: 20230421793
    Abstract: A video encoder for providing an encoded video representation. The video encoder provides a level information that indicates a compatibility of a video stream with a video decoder having a capability level out of a plurality of predetermined capability levels as well as a fractional level information that indicates a fraction of one of the plurality of predetermined capability levels. A video decoder for decoding a provided video representation receives level information and fractional level information.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 14, 2023
    Publication date: December 28, 2023
    Inventors: Robert SKUPIN, Yago SÁNCHEZ DE LA FUENTE, Cornelius HELLGE, Thomas SCHIERL, Karsten SÜHRING, Thomas WIEGAND
  • Patent number: 11856240
    Abstract: Coding schemes for coding a spatially sampled information signal using sub-division and coding schemes for coding a sub-division or a multitree structure are described, wherein representative embodiments relate to a picture and/or video coding applications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 4, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2023
    Assignee: GE VIDEO COMPRESSION, LLC
    Inventors: Heiner Kirchhoffer, Martin Winken, Philipp Helle, Detlev Marpe, Heiko Schwarz, Thomas Wiegand
  • Patent number: 11856219
    Abstract: A proposed intermediate way of handling the renderable portion of the first view results in more efficient coding. Instead of omitting the coding of the renderable portion completely, even more efficient coding of multi-view signals entails merely suppressing the coding of the residual signal within the renderable portion, whereas the prediction parameter coding still takes place from the non-renderable portion of the multi-view signal across the renderable portion so that prediction parameters for the renderable portion may be exploited for predicting parameters for the non-renderable portion. The additional coding rate for transmitting the prediction parameters for the renderable portion may be kept low as this merely aims at forming a continuation of the parameter history across the renderable portion to serve as a basis for prediction parameters of other portions of the multi-view signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2023
    Assignee: GE Video Compression, LLC
    Inventors: Sebastian Bosse, Heiko Schwarz, Thomas Wiegand, Tobias Hinz
  • Publication number: 20230412803
    Abstract: A video decoder for decoding an encoded video signal including encoded picture data and indication data of a picture of a video to reconstruct the picture of the video is provided. The video decoder includes an interface configured for receiving the encoded video signal, and a data decoder configured for reconstructing the picture of the video by decoding the encoded picture data using the indication data. The picture is partitioned into a plurality of coding areas. One or more coding areas of the plurality of coding areas include two or more coding tree units of the plurality of coding tree units, wherein each coding area of the one or more coding areas which includes two or more coding tree units exhibits a coding order for the two or more coding tree units of the coding area.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 14, 2023
    Publication date: December 21, 2023
    Inventors: Valeri GEORGE, Tobias HINZ, Jackie MA, Yago SÁNCHEZ DE LA FUENTE, Robert SKUPIN, Thomas SCHIERL, Jens BRANDENBURG, Christian LEHMANN, Adam WIECKOWSKI, Heiko SCHWARZ, Detlev MARPE, Thomas WIEGAND
  • Publication number: 20230412824
    Abstract: A video data stream is rendered reducible in a manner so that the reduction leads to a restriction of pictures of the reduced video data stream to merely a predetermined subarea of the pictures of the original video data stream and in a manner so that transcoding, such as re-quantization, may be avoided and a conformance of the reduced video data stream relative to the codec underlying the original video data stream be maintained. This is achieved by providing the video data stream with information including an indication of the predetermined subarea and replacement indices for redirecting the indices included by the payload portion so as to refer to, and/or replacement parameters for adjusting the first set of coding parameter settings so as to result in, a second set of coding parameter settings.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 26, 2023
    Publication date: December 21, 2023
    Inventors: Robert SKUPIN, Yago SÁNCHEZ DE LA FUENTE, Thomas SCHIERL, Cornelius HELLGE, Karsten GRÛNEBERG, Thomas WIEGAND
  • Publication number: 20230412822
    Abstract: The way of predicting a current block by assigning constant partition values to the partitions of a bi-partitioning of a block is quite effective, especially in case of coding sample arrays such as depth/disparity maps where the content of these sample arrays is mostly composed of plateaus or simple connected regions of similar value separated from each other by steep edges. The transmission of such constant partition values would, however, still need a considerable amount of side information which should be avoided. This side information rate may be further reduced if mean values of values of neighboring samples associated or adjoining the respective partitions are used as predictors for the constant partition values.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 12, 2023
    Publication date: December 21, 2023
    Inventors: Philipp MERKLE, Christian BARTNIK, Haricharan LAKSHMAN, Detlev MARPE, Karsten MUELLER, Thomas WIEGAND, Gerhard TECH
  • Publication number: 20230412850
    Abstract: A better compromise between encoding complexity and achievable rate distortion ratio, and/or to achieve a better rate distortion ratio is achieved by using multitree sub-divisioning not only in order to subdivide a continuous area, namely the sample array, into leaf regions, but using the intermediate regions also to share coding parameters among the corresponding collocated leaf blocks. By this measure, coding procedures performed in tiles—leaf regions—locally, may be associated with coding parameters individually without having to, however, explicitly transmit the whole coding parameters for each leaf region separately. Rather, similarities may effectively exploited by using the multitree subdivision.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 6, 2023
    Publication date: December 21, 2023
    Inventors: Philipp HELLE, Detlev MARPE, Simon OUDIN, Thomas WIEGAND
  • Patent number: 11849077
    Abstract: Interpolation between explicitly signaled CPB (or HRD) parameters at selected bit rates is used to achieve a good compromise between CPB parameter transmission capacity and CPB parametrization effectiveness and may be, particularly, made in an effective manner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 2023
    Date of Patent: December 19, 2023
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Yago Sánchez De La Fuente, Benjamin Bross, Robert Skupin, Cornelius Hellge, Thomas Schierl, Thomas Wiegand
  • Patent number: 11849076
    Abstract: Interpolation between explicitly signaled CPB (or HRD) parameters at selected bit rates is used to achieve a good compromise between CPB parameter transmission capacity and CPB parametrization effectiveness and may be, particularly, made in an effective manner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 2023
    Date of Patent: December 19, 2023
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Yago Sánchez De La Fuente, Benjamin Bross, Robert Skupin, Cornelius Hellge, Thomas Schierl, Thomas Wiegand
  • Patent number: 11843757
    Abstract: Embodiments are described which exploit a finding, according to which a higher compression rate or better rate/distortion ratio may be achieved by adopting or predicting second coding parameters used for encoding a second view of the multi-view signal from first coding parameters used in encoding a first view of the multi-view signal. In other words, the inventors found out that the redundancies between views of a multi-view signal are not restricted to the views themselves, such as the video information thereof, but that the coding parameters in parallelly encoding these views show similarities which may be exploited in order to further improve the coding rate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 12, 2023
    Assignee: GE Video Compression, LLC
    Inventors: Thomas Wiegand, Detlev Marpe, Karsten Mueller, Philipp Merkle, Gerhard Tech, Hunn Rhee, Heiko Schwarz
  • Patent number: 11843774
    Abstract: The present invention concerns an apparatus configured to partition a picture into leaf blocks using recursive multi-tree partitioning, block-based encode the picture into a data stream using the partitioning of the picture into the leaf blocks, wherein the apparatus is configured to, in partitioning the picture into the leaf blocks, for a predetermined block which extends beyond a boundary of the picture, reduce an available set of split modes depending on a position at which the boundary of the picture crosses the predetermined block in order to obtain a reduced set of one or more split modes, wherein the apparatus is configured to signal a selected split mode in the data stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 12, 2023
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Adam Wieckowski, Valeri George, Tobias Hinz, Heiko Schwarz, Detlev Marpe, Thomas Wiegand, Jackie Ma, Jens Brandenburg
  • Patent number: 11838511
    Abstract: A decoder for decoding a data stream into which media data is coded has a mode switch configured to activate a low-complexity mode or a high-efficiency mode depending on the data stream, an entropy decoding engine configured to retrieve each symbol of a sequence of symbols by entropy decoding using a selected one of a plurality of entropy decoding schemes, a desymbolizer configured to desymbolize the sequence of symbols to obtain a sequence of syntax elements, a reconstructor configured to reconstruct the media data based on the sequence of syntax elements, selection depending on the activated low-complexity mode or the high-efficiency mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 5, 2023
    Assignee: GE Video Compression, LLC
    Inventors: Valeri George, Benjamin Bross, Heiner Kirchhoffer, Detlev Marpe, Tung Nguyen, Matthias Preiss, Mischa Siekmann, Jan Stegemann, Thomas Wiegand, Christian Bartnik
  • Patent number: 11838504
    Abstract: Sub-picture extraction is rendered less complex by providing each slice with start position information which indicates a starting position from which onwards the picture is, along a coding path, encoded into the respective slice, relative to an onset position at which the coding path starts traversing a segment the starting position is located in. Alternatively or additionally, sub-picture extraction processes are treated like choosing one layer out of a multi-layer datastream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 4, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 5, 2023
    Assignee: FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FÖRDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V.
    Inventors: Robert Skupin, Cornelius Hellge, Valeri George, Thomas Schierl, Yago Sánchez De La Fuente, Karsten Sühring, Thomas Wiegand
  • Publication number: 20230388558
    Abstract: A better compromise between encoding complexity and achievable rate distortion ratio, and/or to achieve a better rate distortion ratio is achieved by using multitree sub-divisioning not only in order to subdivide a continuous area, namely the sample array, into leaf regions, but using the intermediate regions also to share coding parameters among the corresponding collocated leaf blocks. By this measure, coding procedures performed in tiles—leaf regions—locally, may be associated with coding parameters individually without having to, however, explicitly transmit the whole coding parameters for each leaf region separately. Rather, similarities may effectively exploited by using the multitree subdivision.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 14, 2023
    Publication date: November 30, 2023
    Inventors: Philipp HELLE, Detlev MARPE, Simon OUDIN, Thomas WIEGAND
  • Publication number: 20230388518
    Abstract: A coding concept for encoding a picture uses a multi-layered convolutional neural network for determining a feature representation of the picture, the feature representation comprising first to third partial representations which have mutually different resolutions. Further, an encoder for encoding a picture determines a quantization of the picture using a polynomial function which provides an estimated distortion associated with the quantization.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 11, 2023
    Publication date: November 30, 2023
    Inventors: Jonathan PFAFF, Michael SCHÄFER, Sophie PIENTKA, Heiko SCHWARZ, Detlev MARPE, Thomas WIEGAND
  • Publication number: 20230388496
    Abstract: An apparatus for decoding a picture is configured to partition the picture into coding blocks, using recursive multi-tree splitting. Splitting schemes for the multi-tree splitting are described. According to an embodiment, the decoder decodes a split direction flag from a data stream by context adaptive entropy decoding using a context which depends on whether, and discriminates between, a first number of criteria which would be fulfilled in case of a split direction indicated by the split direction flag being horizontal equals a second number of criteria which would be fulfilled in case of the split direction indicated by the split direction flag being vertical, the first number being greater than the second number, and the first number being smaller than the second number.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 10, 2023
    Publication date: November 30, 2023
    Inventors: Adam WIECKOWSKI, Phan Hoang Tung NGUYEN, Detlev MARPE, Hieko SCHWARZ, Thomas WIEGAND
  • Publication number: 20230379471
    Abstract: Concepts are presented which achieve a more efficient coding of coefficients of a transform block by use of dependent quantization and context adaptive entropy coding or achieve a coding of coefficients of a transform block in a manner which allows a more efficient coding even if a usage of dependent quantization is combined with the usage of context adaptive entropy coding.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 13, 2023
    Publication date: November 23, 2023
    Inventors: Heiko SCHWARZ, Thomas WIEGAND, Phan Hoang Tung NGUYEN, Detlev MARPE