Method and system for video telephony

• US 20010055058A1
• Filed: 04/27/2001
• Published: 12/27/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Milovanovic, Rajko, Killian, Robert T.
• Application Number:
  US09/843,674
• Publication Number:
  US 20010055058A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/14.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/567 Multimedia conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/142 Constructional details of the terminal equipment, e.g. arrangements of the camera and the display

Abstract

A method and apparatus is described for intelligently acquiring participants in a video telephony system by identifying human faces (101) in a bit map image from other objects and determine locations of the faces on the screen (102). The method then determines those to be included in the video conferencing by prompting for example and addressing a processor to move the camera to those locations (104-106).

Claims

1. A method of acquisition of participants in a video telephony session comprising the steps of:

building a visual enumeration list of humans in the video telephony session for the camera to focus on;

determining locations of the humans; and

controlling the camera to hop from directly from human to human.

2. The method of

claim 1

wherein said building step includes highlighting a human and prompting users to identify if that human is to be included.

3. The method of

claim 1

wherein each person'"'"'s face is tagged in a training session and the humans to be included are called out or otherwise determined by the tag.

4. The method of

claim 1

wherein the locations of the human faces are determined and stored.

5. The method of

claim 1

wherein the building step includes comparing a stored bit map of the faces of participants with a received bit map from the camera and the locating step determines the locations of the faces in the image.

6. The method of

claim 1

wherein the camera includes a drive circuit responsive to the stored locations for driving the camera to focus on the faces.

7. The method of

claim 1

including the step of designating a target person in a whisper target mode, and diverting videophone mike and speakers out of shared audio to private conversation.

8. The method of

claim 7

including the step of automatically calling designated person'"'"'s private phone when designating a target person as the whisper target.

9. The method of

claim 8

wherein the designated target person'"'"'s cellphone is called.

10. The method of

claim 7

wherein said designating step includes highlighting the target person on the video screen.

11. The method of

claim 7

wherein said designating step includes removing all other humans on the screen but the target person.

12. The method of

claim 7

including the step of escaping from the whisper mode using a remote.

13. The method of

claim 1

including the step of a voyeurism mode designating a target person for viewing without notice.

14. The method of

claim 13

wherein said camera on the other end zooms on the target person for viewing.

15. The method of

claim 13

wherein the target person'"'"'s view of user'"'"'s view only has a freeze frame view of user'"'"'s view before going into the voyeurism mode.

16. The method of

claim 13

including the step of escaping from the voyeurism mode using a remote.