Enhanced image capture

• US 10,250,799 B2
• Filed: 08/04/2014
• Issued: 04/02/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Petrescu, Doina I., Lay, Thomas T., Petrie, Steven R., Ryan, Bill, Sinha, Snigdha, Vanhoof, Jeffrey S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Sinh
• Assistant Examiner(s): Gebriel, Selam T
• Application Number:
  US14/450,492
• Publication Number:
  US 20150341548A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,702 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00 Scanning, transmission or reproduction of documents or the like, e.g. facsimile transmission; Details thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00244 with a server, e.g. an internet server fax-servers or the like for store and forward H04N1/324
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/21 Intermediate information storage H04N1/387, H04N1/41 take precedence ; for control between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device H04N1/32358; indexing, editing G11B27/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/212 Motion video recording combined with still video recording television signal recording H04N5/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/2145 of a sequence of images for selection of a single frame before final recording, e.g. from a continuous sequence captured before and after shutter-release
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/215 Recording a sequence of still pictures, e.g. burst mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3247 Data linking a set of images to one another, e.g. sequence, burst or continuous capture mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/60 Control of cameras or camera modules
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/61 based on recognised objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/611 where the recognised objects include parts of the human body
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/62 Control of parameters via user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/63 by using electronic viewfinders
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/631 Graphical user interfaces [GUI] specially adapted for controlling image capture or setting capture parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/64 Computer-aided capture of images, e.g. transfer from script file into camera, check of taken image quality, advice or proposal for image composition or decision on when to take image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/667 Camera operation mode switching, e.g. between still and video, sport and normal or high- and low-resolution modes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/6811 based on the image signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/6812 based on additional sensors, e.g. acceleration sensors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/683 performed by a processor, e.g. controlling the readout of an image memory
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/80 Camera processing pipelines; Components thereof

Abstract

Disclosed are techniques that provide a “best” picture taken within a few seconds of the moment when a capture command is received (e.g., when the “shutter” button is pressed). In some situations, several still images are automatically (that is, without the user'"'"'s input) captured. These images are compared to find a “best” image that is presented to the photographer for consideration. Video is also captured automatically and analyzed to see if there is an action scene or other motion content around the time of the capture command. If the analysis reveals anything interesting, then the video clip is presented to the photographer. The video clip may be cropped to match the still-capture scene and to remove transitory parts. Higher-precision horizon detection may be provided based on motion analysis and on pixel-data analysis.

Claims

1. A method on an image-capture device, the method comprising:

capturing, by the image-capture device, a plurality of still images;

receiving, by the image-capture device, a capture command;

selecting, by the image-capture device, a still image from the plurality of captured images, wherein the selecting a still image is based, at least in part, on a temporal proximity of an image-capture time of a captured image to a time of the capture command; and

capturing, by the image-capture device, video;

analyzing, by the image-capture device, the captured video to determine an interest score for a segment of video based, at least in part, on an analysis of the plurality of still images, the segment of video being a sequence of video frames; and

in response to determining that the interest score for the segment of the captured video is above a threshold, outputting a notification that the captured video is available.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein a range of capture times for the plurality of still images overlaps a capture-time range of the captured video.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein a rate of capturing still images and a quality of captured video are both based, at least in part, on a level of resources available to the image-capture device.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the analyzing the captured video is further based, at least in part, on an image-stabilized version of the captured video.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the analyzing the captured video is further based, at least in part, on a time of the capture command.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the selecting a still image and the analyzing the captured video are each further based, at least in part, on an element selected from the group consisting of:

a stated preference of a user of the image-capture device, past behavior of the user of the image-capture device, and a privacy setting.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the selecting a still image and the analyzing the captured video are both further based, at least in part, on information received from a server remote from the image-capture device.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

sending metadata associated with capturing the plurality of still images to a server remote from the image-capture device; and

sending metadata associated with capturing the video to the remote server.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the selecting a still image is further based, at least in part, on the analyzing the captured video.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the selecting a still image is further based, at least in part, on an element selected from the group consisting of:

motion-sensor data, face-detection information, pixel-frame statistics, activity detection, camera-sensor metadata, camera-sensor state, input from scene analysis, intra-frame motion estimation, and inter-frame motion estimation.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the analyzing the captured video is based, at least in part, on an analysis of the selected still image.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the analyzing the captured video is further based, at least in part, on an element selected from the group consisting of:

motion-sensor data, face-detection information, pixel-frame statistics, activity detection, camera-sensor metadata, camera-sensor state, input from scene analysis, intra-frame motion estimation, and inter-frame motion estimation.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

delimiting a segment of video of interest, the delimiting based, at least in part, on an element selected from the group consisting of;

analyzing the captured video, motion-sensor data, and selecting a still image.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein image stabilization is applied to the captured video and image-stabilization is not applied to the plurality of captured still images.

15. An image-capture device comprising:

an image-capture system configured for capturing a plurality of still images and for capturing video;

a user interface configured for receiving a capture command from a user of the image-capture device; and

a processing system operatively connected to the image-capture system and to the user interface and configured for;

analyzing, by the image-capture device, the captured video to determine an interest score for a segment of the captured video, the segment of the captured video being a sequence of video frames;

selecting a still image from the plurality of captured images, wherein selecting a still image is based, at least in part, on a temporal proximity of an image-capture time of a captured image to a time of a capture command and the analyzing the captured video; and

in response to determining that the interest score for the segment of the captured video is above a threshold, outputting a notification that the captured video is available.

16. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein the device is selected from the group consisting of:

a camera, a cellphone, and a tablet computer.

17. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein a range of capture times for the plurality of still images overlaps a capture-time range of the captured video.

18. The image-capture device of claim 17 wherein a rate of capturing still images and a quality of captured video are both based, at least in part, on a level of resources available to the image-capture device.

19. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein the analyzing the captured video is based, at least in part, on an image-stabilized version of the captured video.

20. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein the analyzing the captured video is based, at least in part, on a time of the capture command.

21. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein the selecting a still image and the analyzing the captured video are each further based, at least in part, on at least one of a stated preference of a user of the image-capture device, past behavior of the user of the image-capture device, or a privacy setting.

22. The image-capture device of claim 15 further comprising:

a communications interface operatively connected to the processing system and configured for receiving information from a server remote from the image-capture device;

wherein selecting a still image and the analyzing the captured video are both further based, at least in part, on the received information.

23. The image-capture device of claim 22 wherein the communications interface is further configured for:

sending metadata associated with capturing the plurality of still images to a server remote from the image-capture device; and

sending metadata associated with capturing the video to the remote server.

24. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein the selecting a still image is further based, at least in part, on at least one of motion-sensor data, face-detection information, pixel-frame statistics, activity detection, camera-sensor metadata, camera-sensor state, input from scene analysis, intra-frame motion estimation, or inter-frame motion estimation.

25. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein the analyzing the captured video is further based, at least in part, on an analysis of the plurality of captured images.

26. The image-capture device of claim 25 wherein the analyzing the captured video is further based, at least in part, on at least one of motion-sensor data, face-detection information, pixel-frame statistics, activity detection, camera-sensor metadata, camera-sensor state, input from scene analysis, intra-frame motion estimation, and inter-frame motion estimation.

27. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein the processing system is further configured for:

delimiting a segment of video of interest, the delimiting based, at least in part, on an element selected from the group consisting of;

analyzing the captured video, motion-sensor data, and selecting a still image.

28. The image-capture device of claim 15 wherein the processing system is further configured for applying image stabilization to the captured video and not applying image-stabilization to the plurality of captured still images.