Portable communication terminal capable of abstracting and inserting backgroud image and method thereof

• US 20040120584A1
• Filed: 10/10/2003
• Published: 06/24/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: CLinternational Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: CLinternational Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Jang, Min-Keun, Song, Ju-Seong
• Application Number:
  US10/474,563
• Publication Number:
  US 20040120584A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/232
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/23 with coding of regions that are present throughout a whole video segment, e.g. sprites, background or mosaic
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/27 involving both synthetic and natural picture components, e.g. synthetic natural hybrid coding [SNHC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23418 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics television picture signal circuitry for scene change detection H04N5/147; filtering for image enhancement G06T5/00; methods or arrangements for recognising scenes G06V20/00; arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234318 by decomposing into objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4318 by altering the content in the rendering process, e.g. blanking, blurring or masking an image region image enhancement or restoration in general G06T5/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q

Abstract

The present invention relates to a portable communication terminal for dynamic image service capable of abstracting and inserting background image, and method of separating the background image using the same. The present invention has an advantage in that the user'"'"'s personal privacy could be effectively protected by transmitting the image data of which the background image is removed or other pseudo background image or pseudo dynamic image is inserted because the background image which needs to protect the user'"'"'s privacy could be removed selectively according to the request of the user or a pseudo background image selected by the user or a pseudo dynamic image prepared beforehand instead of the image data of the user on communicating with dynamic image could be inserted and transmitted to the other user when communicating with dynamic image.

Claims

1. A portable communication terminal capable of extracting and inserting background image that could provide dynamic image communication services comprising:

an image input unit for inputting image data from the image taken from a subject for photography;

a background image processing unit for separating selectively and processing the image data inputted from said image input unit into the main image data for the user and the background image data for the background of the user'"'"'s backside;

a CODEC unit for encoding and compressing the image data inputted from said image processing unit into certain format, and for dissolving and decoding to output the compressed image data received from the other side wirelessly;

a control unit for transmitting wirelessly the image data inputted from said image processing unit after encoding via said CODEC unit and compressing it into certain format; and

a display unit for displaying said image data decoded and outputted from said CODEC unit.

2. The portable communication terminal capable of extracting and inserting background image according to claim 1, wherein said image input unit comprises:

a lens unit for receiving the image of the subject;

a CMOS sensor for converting and outputting the optical signal of the subject passed through said lens unit into electric signal;

ADC for converting the image signal gain-controlled into digital signal; and

DSP for converting the digitalized image signal inputted from said ADC into NTSC or PAL typed image signal.

3. The portable communication terminal capable of extracting and inserting background image according to claim 1, wherein said background image processing unit comprises:

a background extracting unit for separating and extracting the image data of the background image from said inputted image data; and

a background image inserting unit for inserting pseudo background image data into the area where said background image extracted according to the request to display the pseudo background image from the user.

4. The portable communication terminal capable of extracting and inserting background image according to claim 3, wherein said background image extracting unit extracts the image data for the background image by extracting the contour line of the user'"'"'s face of the inputted image taken at said lens unit.

5. The portable communication terminal capable of extracting and inserting background image according to claim 3, wherein said background image inserting unit further comprises a background image memory for storing various background image data to be displayed at the area of the background image of the image data of which the background image is removed.

6. A method of separating the background image at the portable communication terminal capable of dynamic image communication comprised of a image input unit, a background image processing unit, a CODEC unit and a control unit comprising steps of:

(a) receiving image data of a subject for photography through said image input unit when there is a request for the dynamic image communication mode;

(b) inspecting whether there is a request to remove the background image of the image data from the user or not;

(c) extracting the background image by separating said input image data into the main image data and the background image data through extracting the contour of said user'"'"'s face if there'"'"'s a request to remove said background image;

(d) compressing into certain format after encoding the image data of which said background image is extracted via said CODEC unit; and

(e) transmitting said compressed image data into said certain format wirelessly to the other terminal.

7. A method of separating the background image according to claim 6 comprising steps of:

(f) receiving a pseudo background image selected by the user if there is a request to insert the pseudo background image into the image data of which said background image is removed after (c) step of extracting the background image;

(g) inserting said selected pseudo background image into the area of the background image of said image data;

(h) compressing said image data in which pseudo background image is inserted into a certain format via said CODEC unit after decoding; and

(i) transmitting said image data compressed into a certain format wirelessly to the other terminal.

8. A method of separating the background image according to claim 6 comprising steps of:

(f′

) receiving a pseudo dynamic image selected by the user if there is a request to display the pseudo background image into the image data of which said background image is removed after (c) step of extracting the background image;

(g′

) compressing said selected pseudo dynamic image data into a certain format via said CODEC unit after decoding; and

(l′

) transmitting said pseudo dynamic image data compressed into a certain format wirelessly to the other terminal.

9. A method of separating the background image according to claim 6, wherein said pseudo dynamic image data is one of various kinds of dynamic data stored beforehand.