Image processing apparatus, method of controlling thereof, and program

• US 20060120618A1
• Filed: 12/02/2005
• Published: 06/08/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Mizoguchi, Shigeru
• Granted Patent: US 8,064,710 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/255
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30168 Image quality inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0002 Inspection of images, e.g. flaw detection

Abstract

An object of the present invention is to detect characteristics of images such as blurring and the like without expanding compressed and stored image data. And, the above-described detection is realized by detecting image characteristics on the basis of attached information of an image, such as relation between low frequency components and high frequency components of alternate current components and contents of a quantization table of image data compressed by a compression system for converting image data into spatial frequency components. In addition, for example, as a result of detection, an image discriminated to be in a blurred state is controlled so as not to be inserted into an album template or to be inserted into a small area inside the album template. Thereby, a user can omit work of picking and choosing images to insert into an album template while taking a look at a lot of images.

Claims

1. A blurring discriminating method comprising the steps of:

extracting compressed data from an image compression file;

analyzing a feature of the data extracted in said extracting step; and

discriminating whether a photographing state of an image of the image compression file is a blurring state, on the basis of an analysis result in said analyzing step.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising a step, of calculating, as a feature amount, a distribution of spatial frequency characteristics including a direction component, from the compressed data extracted in said extracting step,

wherein said discriminating step includes a step of detecting a blurring direction to discriminate the blurring state.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the compressed data is divided into blocks, on the basis of 8×

8 pixel basis.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the compressed data is of a JPEG type.

5. A blurring discriminating method comprising the steps of:

inputting image data provided by dividing image data into blocks on a plurality of pixels basis and compressing it on the block basis;

detecting an image compression conversion characteristics of each of the blocks of the image data input in said inputting step;

calculating a feature amount on the basis of the image compression characteristics detected in said detecting step; and

discriminating whether the image data input in said inputting step is of a blurring state, on the basis of a calculation result in said calculating step.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein said calculating step includes a step of calculating, as the feature amount, a distribution of spatial frequency characteristics including a direction component, from the image data input in said inputting step, and wherein said discriminating step includes a step of detecting a blurring direction to discriminate the blurring state.

7. A method according to claim 5, wherein the block is a 8×

8 pixel block.

8. A method according to claim 5, wherein the image data input in said inputting step is of a JPEG type.

9. A blurring discriminating apparatus comprising:

extracting means for extracting compressed data from an image compression file;

analyzing means for analyzing a feature of the data extracted by said extracting means; and

discriminating means for discriminating whether a photographing state of an image of the image compression file is a blurring state, on the basis of an analysis result by said analyzing means.

10. An apparatus according to claim 9, further comprising calculating means for calculating, as a feature amount, a distribution of spatial frequency characteristics including a direction component, from the compressed data extracted by said extracting means,

wherein said discriminating means detects a blurring direction to discriminate the blurring state.

11. An apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the compressed data is divided into blocks, on the basis of 8×

8 pixel basis.

12. An apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the compressed data is of a JPEG type.

13. A blurring discriminating apparatus comprising:

inputting means for inputting image data provided by dividing image data into blocks on a plurality of pixels basis and compressing it on the blocks basis;

detecting means for detecting an image compression conversion characteristics of each of the blocks of the image data input by said inputting means;

calculating means for calculating a feature amount on the basis of the image compression characteristics detected by said detecting means; and

discriminating means for discriminating whether the image data input by said inputting means is of a blurring state, on the basis of a calculation result by said calculating means.

14. An apparatus according to claim 13, wherein said calculating means calculates, as the feature amount, a distribution of spatial frequency characteristics including a direction component, from the image data input by said inputting means, and wherein said discriminating means detects a blurring direction to discriminate the blurring state.

15. An apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the block is a 8×

8 pixel block.

16. An apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the image data input by said inputting means is of a JPEG type.