METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY DETERMINING THE ACCEPTABILITY OF A DIGITAL IMAGE

• US 20100303363A1
• Filed: 08/12/2010
• Published: 12/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Elena A. Fedorovskaya, James R. Niederbaumer, Lorrie Claver
• Inventors: Claver, Lorrie, Niederbaumer, James R., Fedorovskaya, Elena A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,899,256 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/199
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30168 Image quality inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0002 Inspection of images, e.g. flaw detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/44 using image operators, e.g. filters, edge density metrics or local histograms
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/98 Detection or correction of errors, e.g. by rescanning the pattern or by human intervention; Evaluation of the quality of the acquired patterns
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/993 Evaluation of the quality of the acquired pattern
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/166 using acquisition arrangements

Abstract

A method for automatically determining the acceptability of an input image for a predetermined output operation, such as printing, includes the steps of: (a) identifying one or more important areas in the input image; (b) calculating a salient acceptability feature for each of the important areas; (c) determining the acceptability of the input image from the salient acceptability features of the important areas; and (d) implementing the predetermined output operation based on the acceptability of the input image determined in step (c).

Claims

1. A method for automatically determining the acceptability of an input digital image for a printing operation, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) forming a low resolution analysis image from the input digital image;

(b) detecting edge pixels representing edges in the low resolution analysis image;

(c) obtaining an edge map of the edge pixels in the low resolution analysis image;

(d) dividing the edge map into a plurality of blocks, where each block may contain edge pixels from the edge map;

(e) identifying two or more blocks having the largest number of edge pixels;

(f) obtaining from the input image two or more important areas in the input image that correspond to the two or more blocks identified in step (e);

(g) calculating a salient acceptability feature based upon edge occurrence in each of the important areas;

(h) calculating a statistical measure of edge occurrence from the salient acceptability features calculated in step (g); and

(i) using the statistical measure of edge occurrence to determine the acceptability of the digital input image for printing.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the step (b) of detecting edge pixels representing edges in the low resolution analysis image comprises the step employing an edge detection algorithm to detect edges in the low resolution image by using one or more edge detection threshold to identify the edge pixels.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2 wherein the edge detection algorithm is the Canny edge detection algorithm and employs two edge detection thresholds for strong edges and weaker edges associated with the strong edges.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein step (g) of calculating a salient acceptability feature based upon edge occurrence in each of the important areas comprises the step of determining the edge density in each of the important areas.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein step (h) of calculating a statistical measure of edge occurrence from the salient acceptability features calculated in step (g) comprises the step of determining a mean of the edge densities for the important areas.