Patents by Inventor Weiguo Wu

Weiguo Wu 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: 20120045117
    Abstract: Method and device for estimating the posture orientation of the object in image are described. An image feature of the image is obtained. For each orientation class, 3-D object posture information corresponding to the image feature is obtained based on a mapping model corresponding to the orientation class, for mapping the image feature to the 3-D object posture information. A joint probability of a joint feature including the image feature and the corresponding 3-D object posture information for each orientation class is calculated according to a joint probability distribution model based on single probability distribution models for the orientation classes. A conditional probability of the image feature in condition of the corresponding 3-D object posture information is calculated based on the joint probability for each orientation class. The orientation class corresponding to the maximum of the conditional probabilities is estimated as the posture orientation of the object in the image.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 23, 2010
    Publication date: February 23, 2012
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Liang Li, Weiguo Wu
  • Publication number: 20110216978
    Abstract: A method of and an apparatus for classifying an image are disclosed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 4, 2011
    Publication date: September 8, 2011
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Lun ZHANG, Weiguo WU
  • Patent number: 8009879
    Abstract: Disclosed herein is an object recognition device for recognition of an object that exists in an image, the device including: an edge image creator configured to create an edge image from a target image; a local feature extractor configured to extract a feature of each edge point on an edge image, and determine a base point and a support point from edge points in a local area defined for the edge image; a feature matching unit configured to implement, with reference to a memory, feature matching of a base point and a support point to thereby acquire a matching pair; and a matching pair determiner configured to determine final matching pairs by employing matching pairs having a highest matching cost among matching pairs obtained by the feature matching unit, wherein an object in a target image is identified based on matching pairs determined by the matching pair determiner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Yoshiaki Iwai, Akira Nakamura, Weiguo Wu, Takayuki Yoshigahara
  • Patent number: 7997564
    Abstract: The combined waterwheel oxygen-increasing machine pertains to the area of life-saving and facilitation equipment in aquaculture development. The existing waterwheel oxygen-increasing machine is a floating body with brackets integrally connected, inconvenient for assembly and disassembly and for general use. The present invention comprises of floating bodies, a power device, a reduction gearbox and impellers, wherein the power device is connected to a reduction gearbox, which then drives said impellers via an output shaft. The floating bodies are hollow, closed, bodies including longitudinal floating bodies and transversal floating body connected vertically with each other, wherein one end of the longitudinal floating bodies are connected to transversal floating body. The floating bodies bear an output shaft. The impellers are located in the midst of the area surrounded by the longitudinal floating bodies and the transversal floating body.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 4, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2011
    Inventor: Weiguo Wu
  • Patent number: 7999811
    Abstract: An image processing device that models, based on a plurality of frame images being results of time-sequential imaging of an object in motion, a motion of the object using a three-dimensional (3D) body configured by a plurality of parts is disclosed. The device includes: acquisition means for acquiring the frame images being the imaging results; estimation means for computing a first matrix of coordinates of a joint of the 3D body and a second matrix of coordinates of each of the parts of the 3D body, and generating a first motion vector; computing means for computing a second motion vector; and determination means for determining the 3D body.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 14, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Yuyu Liu, Weiguo Wu, Takayuki Yoshigahara
  • Publication number: 20110164788
    Abstract: Provided are a method and device for determining a lean angle of a body and a pose estimation method and device. The method for determining a lean angle of a body of the present invention includes: a head-position obtaining step for obtaining a position of a head; a search region determination step for determining a plurality of search region spaced with an angle around the head; an energy function calculating step for calculating a value of an energy function for the search region; and a lean angle determining step for determining the lean angle of a search region with a largest or smallest value of the energy function as the lean angle of the body. The pose estimation method of the present invention includes a body lean-angle obtaining step, for obtaining a lean angle of a body; and a pose estimation step, for performing a pose estimation based on the lean angle of the body.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 7, 2011
    Publication date: July 7, 2011
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Liang LI, Weiguo Wu
  • Patent number: 7957581
    Abstract: Directions normal to images of an object captured by at least two cameras from different points of view are aligned with each other to form corrected object images, and a correspondence is determined between at least one pixel position on a horizontal line in one of the corrected object images and at least one pixel position on the same horizontal line in another of the corrected object images. The correspondence is determined by determining a similarity in brightness and color components at the pixel positions and a parallax between the corrected object images A robust, accurate image matching can be done by making dynamic matching between all pixels on a scan line in the images captured by the cameras.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 2004
    Date of Patent: June 7, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Weiguo Wu
  • Patent number: 7949188
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus is disclosed which processes moving images each divisible into a plurality of shots, the image processing apparatus including: a holding unit configured to hold discrimination models acquired by learning beforehand a first rule and a second rule from a moving image formed by a plurality of known shot groups which are made up of at least one shot each and from which a highlight is to be extracted in accordance with the discrimination models, the first rule governing relevance between the shots, the second rule governing relevance between frames within each of the shots; and an extraction unit configured to extract from a newly input moving image a shot group recognized as the highlight in accordance with the discrimination models held in the holding unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 24, 2011
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Weiguo Wu, Bo Han, Takayuki Yoshigahara
  • Publication number: 20110106531
    Abstract: This invention relates to retrieval for multimedia content, and provides a program endpoint time detection apparatus for detecting an endpoint time of a program by performing processing on audio signals of said program, comprising an audio classification unit for classifying said audio signals into a speech signal portion and a non-speech signal portion; a keyword retrieval unit for retrieving, as a candidate endpoint keyword, an endpoint keyword indicating start or end of the program from said speech signal portion; a content analysis unit for performing content analysis on context of the candidate endpoint keyword retrieved by the keyword retrieval unit to determine whether the candidate endpoint keyword is a valid endpoint keyword; and a program endpoint time determination unit for performing statistics analysis based on the retrieval result of said keyword retrieval unit and the determination result of said content analysis unit, and determining the endpoint time of the program.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 28, 2010
    Publication date: May 5, 2011
    Applicants: SONY CORPORATION, Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Scienc.
    Inventors: Kun LIU, Weiguo Wu, Li Lu, Qingwei Zhao, Yonghong Yan, Hongbin Suo
  • Publication number: 20110063453
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a shot transition detection method and a shot transition detection apparatus. The shot transition detection method includes an inter-frame feature differential sequence generation step of generating a plurality of inter-frame feature differential sequences with different differential scales based on a video, wherein lengths of at least two inter-frame feature differential sequences of the plurality of inter-frame feature differential sequences are greater than or equal to 2; and a shot transition detection step of detecting a shot transition in the video by an association of the plurality of inter-frame feature differential sequences. The present invention is capable of detecting a shot transition in a video effectively.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 15, 2010
    Publication date: March 17, 2011
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Bo HAN, Weiguo Wu
  • Publication number: 20110046958
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for extracting a prosodic feature of a speech signal, the method including: dividing the speech signal into speech frames; transforming the speech frames from time domain to frequency domain; and extracting respective prosodic features for different frequency ranges. According to the above technical solution of the present invention, it is possible to effectively extract the prosodic feature which can combine with a traditional acoustics feature without any obstacle.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 16, 2010
    Publication date: February 24, 2011
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Kun LIU, Weiguo Wu
  • Patent number: 7862301
    Abstract: The present invention relates generally to impeller of aerators, and more particularly to a laminated impeller of paddlewheel aerator. To solve the shortcoming of existing impeller of aerator: single-body structure, large volume, complicated manufacturing technique and high production cost, fixed blade quantity and axial length, narrow application range and inferior universal use, the present invention provides a laminated impeller that is characterized by simple structure, easy installation and better universal use. The technical scheme of the present invention comprises single impeller body consisting of impeller seat and blade connecting on the seat, a plurality of single impeller body connected in succession to form a laminated impeller, connecting mechanism provided on impeller seat to connect neighboring single impeller, axial impeller length adjusted according to the power needed actually and blade quantity changed to meet wider application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 4, 2011
    Inventor: Weiguo Wu
  • Publication number: 20100272366
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method for detecting a specific object in an image to be detected, including: a feature extraction step for extracting an image feature of the image to be detected; and a detection step for detecting detection windows with various sizes of the image to be detected according to the extracted image feature by using classifiers with various sizes corresponding to at least a part of the detection windows with various sizes, so as to determine the presence and location of a specific object in the image to be detected. The invention further provides an object detection device and a system including the device. The method, device and system for detecting a specific object in an image to be detected can improve the precision and increase the speed of the object detection.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 16, 2010
    Publication date: October 28, 2010
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Long MENG, Weiguo Wu
  • Publication number: 20100231802
    Abstract: A method and system for carrying out reliability classification for motion vectors in a video is proposed in the application. The method comprises: partitioning and searching step for partitioning a specified video frame of an input video, and searching motion vectors for a specified block of the specified video frame so as to generate a block matching error for the specified block; texture feature extracting step for extracting a texture feature of the specified block; and classifying-by-block step for carrying out reliability classification for the motion vectors for the specified block in accordance with the block matching error and the texture feature of the specified block.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 2, 2010
    Publication date: September 16, 2010
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Bo HAN, Weiguo WU
  • Publication number: 20100098331
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a system and method for segmenting foreground and background in a video, wherein the system comprises: a video shooting module for shooting the video; a data reading module for reading each frame of the video; a primary segmentation module for establishing a plurality of Gaussian models in a first color space for each pixel of each frame, and performing a matching processing between each pixel of the current frame and the plurality of Gaussian models corresponding to the pixel, and primarily segmenting the pixels as foreground and background according to the result of the matching processing; and a segmentation rejudging module for performing a rejudging processing to the primarily segmented foreground and background in a second color space, so as to obtain the finally determined foreground and background. The present invention improves the effect of foreground segmentation by using the combination of the color spaces and introducing the relationship between pixels.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 21, 2009
    Publication date: April 22, 2010
    Applicant: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Long MENG, Weiguo Wu, Yuwei Li
  • Publication number: 20100092074
    Abstract: The present invention provides a foreground action estimating apparatus and a foreground action estimating method, wherein the foreground action estimating apparatus includes: a training image inputting means for inputting a foreground image, a background image and an image having the foreground and background images as training images; a basis matrix calculating means for calculating a foreground basis matrix and a background basis matrix by respectively extracting a foreground feature and a background feature from the foreground image and the background image, respectively, and combining the foreground basis matrix and the background basis matrix to obtain a combined basis matrix; a feature suppressing means for calculating the feature coefficients of the training images in accordance with the combined basis matrix obtained by the basis matrix calculating means so as to obtain image features of the background-feature-suppressed training images; and a foreground action information acquiring means for estimat
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 8, 2009
    Publication date: April 15, 2010
    Applicant: Sony (China) Limited
    Inventors: Li LIANG, Weiguo WU
  • Patent number: 7602966
    Abstract: An image processing method and apparatus is disclosed which can produce parallax data between a plurality of image data with a high degree of accuracy. Probability density functions are updated successively, and a corresponding relationship which minimizes the energy in each of the probability density functions is specified. Then, that one of the probability density functions which finally minimizes the energy and parallax data corresponding to the correspondence relationship are specified.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2006
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2009
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Yuyu Liu, Weiguo Wu
  • Publication number: 20080310727
    Abstract: The present invention provides a moving image analyzing apparatus, method and system. The moving image analyzing apparatus comprises a moving image reading means for reading a moving image, a region-of-interest extracting means for extracting a region-of-interest from each frame in the moving image, an object feature extracting means for extracting an object feature in the region-of-interest or a region adjacent to the region-of-interest, and a shot change detecting means for detecting a shot change on the basis of the color feature of image, the object feature of the region-of-interest, and the differences of the motion information among the images of each frame. By estimating the reliability of the motion information within an image, the present invention can eliminate the shot change which is incorrectly detected according to the color distribution feature and the dimensional feature of the region-of-interest, thereby improving the detection accuracy of shot change.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 16, 2008
    Publication date: December 18, 2008
    Applicant: Sony (China) Limited
    Inventors: Weiguo Wu, Takayuki Yoshigahara, Bo Han, Yichuan Hu
  • Publication number: 20080284784
    Abstract: An image processing device that models, based on a plurality of frame images being results of time-sequential imaging of an object in motion, a motion of the object using a three-dimensional (3D) body configured by a plurality of parts is disclosed. The device includes: acquisition means for acquiring the frame images being the imaging results; estimation means for computing a first matrix of coordinates of a joint of the 3D body and a second matrix of coordinates of each of the parts of the 3D body, and generating a first motion vector; computing means for computing a second motion vector; and determination means for determining the 3D body.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 14, 2008
    Publication date: November 20, 2008
    Inventors: Yuyu Liu, Weiguo Wu, Takayuki Yoshigahara
  • Publication number: 20080164624
    Abstract: The combined waterwheel oxygen-increasing machine pertains to the area of life-saving and facilitation equipment in aquaculture development. The existing waterwheel oxygen-increasing machine is a floating body with brackets integrally connected, inconvenient for assembly and disassembly and for general use. The present invention comprises of floating bodies, a power device, a reduction gearbox and impellers, wherein the power device is connected to a reduction gearbox, which then drives said impellers via an output shaft. The floating bodies are hollow, closed, bodies including longitudinal floating bodies and transversal floating body connected vertically with each other, wherein one end of the longitudinal floating bodies are connected to transversal floating body. The floating bodies bear an output shaft. The impellers are located in the midst of the area surrounded by the longitudinal floating bodies and the transversal floating body.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 4, 2008
    Publication date: July 10, 2008
    Inventor: Weiguo Wu