Data capture and identification system and process

• US 20060181605A1
• Filed: 01/26/2006
• Published: 08/17/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nant Holdings IP, LLC (NantWorks, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Evryx Technologies Inc (Ipplex Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Boncyk, Wayne C., Cohen, Ronald H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,565,008 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/14.10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/21 Design, administration or maintenance of databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5854 using shape and object relationship
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/462 Salient features, e.g. scale invariant feature transforms [SIFT]
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/56 relating to colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/7515 Shifting the patterns to accommodate for positional errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/142 using hand-held instruments; Constructional details of the instruments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0202 Portable telephone sets, e.g. cordless phones, mobile phones or bar type handsets constructional features of telephone transmitters or receivers, e.g. of speakers or microphones H04M1/03

Abstract

An identification method and process for objects from digitally captured images thereof that uses data characteristics to identify an object from a plurality of objects in a database. The data is broken down into parameters such as a Shape Comparison, Grayscale Comparison, Wavelet Comparison, and Color Cube Comparison with object data in one or more databases to identify the actual object of a digital image.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a camera that captures an image;

a telephony device having a camera to capture data wherein said telephony device is programmed to identify the data;

distinguish the data from others;

associate the data with other known data and further wherein said telephony device sends the captured data and identification of said data to a service;

the service programmed to receive the data and the telephony device transmitted information of said data, and to further identify an object within the image;

distinguish the object from others using a database that stores data characteristics of target objects including diverse types of target objects;

associate the object with an information address; and

return the address to the telephony device; and

the telephony device further programmed to utilize the address to retrieve an item of information related to the object.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony device comprises a hand-held computer or a cell-phone.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing of the data and recognizing objects in a data are divided arbitrarily between the mobile device and the server.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the service is further programmed to identify the object by applying multiple algorithms to the image, and identify the object as a function of a confidence levels associated with results of the multiple algorithms.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the object is not encoded with any data.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising identifying a bar code or other symbol within the and further wherein the server sends an item of information from the bar code or other symbol to another distal device and may further instruct the distal device with information received from the image.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the service is hosted on a computer remote to the telephony device.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the service is further programmed to select the address from among a plurality of addresses that provide content in a format suitable for display on the telephony device.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the item of information comprises data that can be utilized to conduct a commercial transaction related to the object.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony device is further programmed to use the address to conduct a commercial transaction related to the object.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony device is further programmed to use at least one of the address and the item of information to initiate a software process on a remote computer.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony device is further programmed to use at least one of the address and the item of information to initiate a telephone call.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony device is further programmed to use at least one of the address and the item of information to initiate a radio communication.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony device is further programmed to use at least one of the address and the item of information to send data received from the service to a web site.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony device is further programmed to use at least one of the address and the item of information to display graphics.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony device is further programmed to use at least one of the address and the item of information to produce an audible sound.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the distal server is further programmed to initiate a telephone call from at least one of the address and the item of information.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the data and information is arbitrarily computed, distinguished and associated with other known data between the telephony device and the server.

19. The system of claim 1 wherein the telephony device transmits motion imagery including video information to the server.

20. The system of claim 1 wherein data processing, such as contrast enhancement, noise removal and de-blurring are applied to the capture data prior to the recognition process or applied to the data if the recognition process fails and prior to performing a new search.