RESPONSE TO DETECTION OF BLUR IN AN IMAGE

• US 20100232706A1
• Filed: 03/12/2009
• Published: 09/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/12/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: FORUTANPOUR, BABAK
• Granted Patent: US 8,498,486 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/199
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/61 based on recognised objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/633 for displaying additional information relating to control or operation of the camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/68 for stable pick-up of the scene, e.g. compensating for camera body vibrations

Abstract

A system and method to respond to detection of blurry regions of interest in an image are disclosed. One embodiment includes a region locator to locate one or more regions of interest in an image captured by a digital image capturing device. The embodiment also includes a blurry region detector for detecting whether a region of interest is blurry. A blurry region indicator indicates to a user when a blurry region has been detected. When a blurry region is detected, a display interface provides an enlarged image of the detected blurry region. Some embodiments provide recommendations on how to capture the scene again with improved results.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a region locator to locate one or more regions of interest in an image captured by a digital image capturing device;

a blur detector to detect when one or more located regions are blurry;

an indicator responsive to the blur detector to generate a signal indicating a detected blurry region; and

a display interface to provide an enlarged image of the one or more detected blurry regions to a display device.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the blur detector further comprises an edge detector to detect edges in regions of interest.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the detected edge is classified as one of a soft edge and a hard edge.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the blur detector comprises a comparator to compare a ratio of a first number of detected soft edges to a second number of detected hard edges to a threshold.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the threshold is adjustable by a user of the apparatus.

6. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the edge detector includes logic to compute four first-order derivatives for each pixel in the region of interest.

7. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the blur detector includes logic to identify a first number of soft edges and a second number of hard edges in a sub region of the region.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least one of a plurality of blurry regions is displayed beside a non-blurry region for comparison.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the blur detector is configured to:

determine when all located regions are blurry;

in response to determining that all located regions are blurry, determine if regions outside the located regions are blurry; and

in response to determining that regions outside the located regions are blurry, provide an option to take another picture using a hand jitter reduction algorithm to reduce blurriness due to hand jitter.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the image is captured by a component of the apparatus.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a disable mechanism to disable detection of blurry regions.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a camera to capture the image.

13. A method comprising:

locating one or more regions of interest in a captured image;

detecting one or more blurry regions among the located regions of interest;

generating a user notification signal in response to detecting a first blurry region; and

generating an enlarged image of the first blurry region to be displayed by a display device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein detecting the one or more blurry regions further comprises:

determining a first value corresponding to a number of soft edges in a region of the captured image and determining a second value corresponding to a number of hard edges in the region; and

comparing a ratio of the first value to the second value to a threshold.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising computing four first-order derivatives for each pixel in the region of interest and using the four first-order derivatives to determine the first value and the second value.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

segmenting a located region into a plurality of sub regions;

determining a number of soft edges in a particular sub region among the plurality of sub regions; and

determining a number of hard edges in the particular sub region.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising concurrently displaying an enlarged view of at least one blurry region and an enlarged view of at least one region that is not blurry.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising concurrently displaying enlarged views of multiple blurry regions of the image.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising, in response to detecting that all regions of interest are blurry, performing edge detection upon at least a portion of the captured image that is not within the located regions of interest.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising, in response to determining that the portion of the captured image that is not within the located regions of interest is blurry, providing a user with an option to use a hand jitter reduction algorithm.

21. The method of claim 19, further comprising, in response to determining that the portion of the captured image that is not within the located regions of interest is not blurry, generating an interface to advise a user to aim better.

22. A computer readable tangible medium storing computer executable code, comprising:

code for causing a computer to detect a blurry region of an image;

code for causing the computer to provide a notification of the detected blurry region; and

code for causing the computer to initiate display of an enlarged image of the detected blurry region.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 22, wherein the code for causing the computer to detect the blurry region of the image comprises:

code for causing the computer to determine a first value corresponding to a number of soft edges in a region of the image and to determine a second value corresponding to a number of hard edges in the region; and

code for causing the computer to determine when a ratio of the first value to the second value exceeds a threshold.

24. An apparatus, comprising:

means for detecting a blurry region of a digitized image;

means responsive to the detecting means for generating a notification of the detected blurry region; and

means for initiating a display of an enlarged image of the detected blurry region.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, further comprising means for storing the digitized image.

26. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the means for detecting the blurry region of the digitized image comprises means for detecting a face region of the digitized image.

27. An apparatus, comprising:

means to locate one or more regions of interest in an image captured by a digital image capturing device;

means to detect when one or more located regions are blurry;

means to generate a signal indicating a detected blurry region; and

means to provide an enlarged image of the one or more detected blurry regions to a display means.