Real time image enhancement with adaptive noise reduction and edge detection

• US 20040174350A1
• Filed: 03/09/2003
• Published: 09/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Accerant, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wang, Shi-Chang
• Granted Patent: US 7,088,351 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/204
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/02 Improving the quality of display appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/12 Frame memory handling
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/006 Details of the interface to the display terminal specific for a display terminal using a CRT G09G1/167; using a flat panel G09G3/2096; circuits for interfacing with colour displays G09G5/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/142 Edging; Contouring
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/208 for compensating for attenuation of high frequency components, e.g. crispening, aperture distortion correction

Abstract

Systems and methods for controlling a display device include receiving a source video signal from a video source; storing video pixels in one or more line buffers; enhancing the video signal on the fly using data stored in the line buffers; if image enhancement is not necessary, rendering the source video signal and otherwise rendering the enhanced video signal.

Claims

1. A method for controlling a display device, comprising:

receiving a source video signal from a video source;

storing video pixels in one or more line buffers;

enhancing the video signal on the fly using data stored in the line buffers;

if image enhancement is not necessary, rendering the source video signal and otherwise rendering the enhanced video signal.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the enhancing comprises minimizing noise artifacts.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the enhancing comprises sharping or unsharping the video signal.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the enhancing comprises digitally filtering the video signal.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising reading multiple vertical pixels simultaneously.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising detecting an edge from multiple vertical pixels.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the detecting edge on the object in the picture by applying the weight on a plurality of directions.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising applying weights to top, bottom, left, right, top right, top left, bottom right, and bottom left for each pixel.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising post-processing on video data going to the display device.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising performing post-processing including adjusting contrast, adjusting brightness, adjusting hue and saturation, reducing noise, performing gamma correction, or enhancing a video image.

11. A system for controlling a display device, comprising:

means for receiving a source video signal from a video source;

means for storing video pixels in one or more line buffers;

means for enhancing the video signal on the fly using data stored in the line buffers;

means for rendering the source video signal if image enhancement is not necessary and otherwise rendering the enhanced video signal.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the enhancing means comprises minimizing noise artifacts.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the enhancing means comprises sharping or unsharping the video signal.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the enhancing means comprises digitally filtering the video signal.

15. The system of claim 11, further comprising means for reading multiple vertical pixels simultaneously.

16. The system of claim 11, further comprising means for detecting an edge from multiple vertical pixels.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the means for detecting edge on the object in the picture applies the weight on a plurality of directions.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising means for applying weights to top, bottom, left, right, top right, top left, bottom right, and bottom left for each pixel.

19. The system of claim 11, further comprising post-processing means on video data going to the display device.

20. A liquid crystal display (LCD) controller, comprising:

a buffer to receive image data, the buffer having a fullness measure;

a buffer controller coupled to the buffer to snoop the fullness of the buffer, compare the fullness to an LCD horizontal sync (HSYNC) signal, and adjust the HSYNC period to avoid buffer overflow or underflow; and

a circuit coupled to the controller to minimize noise and to sharpen the image data.