System and method for selectable semantic codec pairs for very low data-rate video transmission

• US 20020062482A1
• Filed: 02/22/2001
• Published: 05/23/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Beijing Zitiao Network Technology Company Limited (ByteDance Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bolle, Rudolf M., Connell, Jonathan
• Granted Patent: US 7,219,364 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/105
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/00 Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/10 using adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/17 the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/20 using video object coding

Abstract

A system and method for using computer image processing for selectable task-based digital video compression is described. The system is intended to reduce travel of experts and let these experts direct field agents in performing tasks remotely. The tasks to be performed in the remote field can be monitoring, manipulating, and navigating. A field agent performs the manipulation and navigation operations, this agent can be a human being or a robot. The task-based compression algorithms use computer vision techniques to extract the bare minimum amount of information from the remote field scenery to allow the task to be performed. High frame rate photo-realistic reconstruction of the remote scene is not generally necessary.

Claims

1. A system for compressing one or more video streams comprising:

one or more image input devices; and

a selector process that selects a selected compression process out of a set of compression processes, the selected compression process compressing one or more of the video streams based on a task that required the compressed video stream.

2. A system, as in claim 1, where the tasks includes any one or more of the following:

surveillance, diagnosis, inspection, navigation, objection localization, control, and maintenance.

3. A system, as in claim 1, where the selected compression process is a lossy process having a compression ratio greater than 100 to 1.

4. A system, as in claim 1, where the set of compression processes includes one or more of the following compression processes:

selective edge retention, line finding, motion segmentation, patch tracking, template matching, object tracking, spatially varying resolution, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, M-JPEG, M-JBIG, H.261, H.323, and region segmentation.

5. A system, as in claim 1, where one of the selected compression process is a line finding process and the task is a diagnostic task.

6. A system, as in claim 1, where one of the selected compression processes is a region segmentation process and the task is a driving task.

7. A system, as in claim 1, where one of the selected compression processes is a object tracking process and the task is a control task.

8. A system, as in claim 1, where one of the selected compression process is a motion segmentation process and the task is the localization of an object.

9. A system, as in claim 1, where one of the selected compression process is a template matching process and the task is the localization of an object.

10. A system, as in claim 1, where one of the selected compression processes is a spatially varying resolution process and the task is an observation of an anchor patch.

11. A system, as in claim 1, where the input device is connected to the selector process running on a remote device, where the remote device is connected to the input device over one or more networks.

12. A system, as in claim 1, where the selector changes one or more of the selected compression processes during the transmission of the video stream.

13. A system, as in claim 1, that is used for one or more of the following:

diagnostics with an expert at a remote site, an observation, a scene inspection, a scene surveillance, a navigation procedure, an objection localization, a control procedure, a maintenance procedure, and a diagnostic procedure.

14. A method for compressing video streams, the method comprising the steps of:

inputting one or more video streams; and

selecting a selected compression process out of a set of compression processes, the selected compression process compressing one or more of the video streams based on a task that required the compressed video stream.

15. A system for compressing video streams, the system comprising:

means for inputting one or more video streams; and

means for selecting a selected compression process out of a set of compression processes, the selected compression process compressing one or more of the video streams based on a task that required the compressed video stream.

16. A computer program process having the steps of:

inputting one or more video streams; and

selecting a selected compression process out of a set of compression processes, the selected compression process compressing one or more of the video streams based on a task that required the compressed video stream.