IMAGE CONVERTING DEVICE AND THREE DIMENSIONAL IMAGE DISPLAY DEVICE INCLUDING THE SAME

• US 20110248988A1
• Filed: 10/27/2010
• Published: 10/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Display Company Limited (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: MIN, Ung-Gyu, PARK, Mun-San, PARK, Cheol-Woo
• Granted Patent: US 8,610,735 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/419
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/205 Image-based rendering
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/261 with monoscopic-to-stereoscopic image conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/271 wherein the generated image signals comprise depth maps or disparity maps

Abstract

An image converting device includes; a downscaling unit which downscales a two-dimensional image to generate at least one downscaling image, a feature map generating unit which extracts feature information from the downscaling image to generate a feature map, a visual attention calculating unit which generates a low-level attention map based on a visual attention of the feature map, and an image expansion unit which up-scales the low-level attention map, wherein an increasing gray value may be added to image data disposed on the upper portion in the low-level attention map, and 0 or a decreasing gray value may be added to the image data disposed on the lower portion.

Claims

1. An image converting device comprising:

a downscaling unit which downscales a two-dimensional image to generate at least one downscaling image;

a feature map generating unit which extracts feature information from the downscaling image to generate a feature map;

a visual attention calculating unit which generates a low-level attention map based on visual attention of the feature map; and

an image expansion unit which up-scales the low-level attention map,

wherein an increasing gray value is added to image data disposed on an upper portion of the low-level attention map, and 0 or a decreasing gray value is added to image data disposed on a lower portion of the low-level attention map.

2. The image converting device of claim 1,

wherein the visual attention calculating unit generates a plurality of low-level attention maps,

wherein the image converting device further comprises an image combination unit which combines the plurality of low-level attention maps, and

wherein a visual attention map is generated by combining the plurality of low-level attention maps.

3. The image converting device of claim 2, further comprising:

an image filtering unit which filters the plurality of combined low-level attention maps.

4. The image converting device of claim 3, wherein the feature map comprises a center area and a surrounding area, and the visual attention is determined based on a difference between a histogram of the center area and a histogram of the surrounding area.

5. The image converting device of claim 3, wherein the feature map comprises a center area and a surrounding area, the surrounding area and the center area each comprise at least one unit-block, respectively, and the visual attention is determined based on a moment for luminance values of a plurality of pixels included in the unit-block.

6. The image converting device of claim 2, wherein the image expansion unit expands the combined plurality of low-level attention maps.

7. The image converting device of claim 1, further comprising:

an image filtering unit which filters the low-level attention map.

8. The image converting device of claim 7, wherein the feature map comprises a center area and a surrounding area, the surrounding area and the center area comprise at least one unit-block each, and the visual attention is determined based on a moment for luminance values of a plurality of pixels included in the at least one unit-block.

9. The image converting device of claim 1, wherein the downscaling image is an image wherein the two-dimensional image is downscaled in a horizontal direction, in a vertical direction, or in both the horizontal direction and the vertical direction.

10. The image converting device of claim 9, wherein a plurality of downscaling images are generated, and the plurality of downscaling images are processed in one frame.

11. The image converting device of claim 1, further comprising:

a parallax information generating unit which generates parallax information based on the visual attention map and the two-dimensional image; and

a three-dimensional image rendering unit which renders the three-dimensional image based on the parallax information and the two-dimensional image.

12. An image converting method comprising:

downscaling a two-dimensional image to generate at least one downscaling image;

extracting feature information from the downscaling image to generate a feature map;

generating a low-level attention map based on a visual attention of the feature map; and

up-scaling the low-level attention map,

wherein an increasing gray value is added to image data disposed on an upper portion of the low-level attention map, and 0 or a decreasing gray value is added to image data disposed on a lower portion of the low-level attention map.

13. The image converting method of claim 12,

wherein a plurality of low-level attention maps are generated,

wherein the method further comprises combining the plurality of low-level attention maps, and

wherein a visual attention map is generated from the combined plurality of low-level attention maps.

14. The image converting method of claim 13, further comprising:

filtering the combined plurality of low-level attention maps.

15. The image converting method of claim 14, wherein the feature map comprises a center area and a surrounding area, and the visual attention is determined based on a difference between a histogram of the center area and a histogram of the surrounding area.

16. The image converting method of claim 14, wherein the feature map comprises a center area and a surrounding area, the surrounding area and the center area comprise at least one unit-block, respectively, and the visual attention is determined based on a moment for luminance values of a plurality of pixels included in the at least one unit-block.

17. The image converting method of claim 12, wherein the downscaling image is an image wherein the 2D image is downscaled in a horizontal direction, in a vertical direction, or in both the horizontal and vertical direction.

18. The image converting method of claim 17, wherein a plurality of downscaling images are generated, and the plurality of downscaling images are processed in one frame.

19. The image converting method of claim 12, further comprising:

generating parallax information based on the visual attention map and the two-dimensional image; and

rendering a three-dimensional image based on the parallax information and the two-dimensional image.

20. A three-dimensional image display device comprising:

a display panel comprising a plurality of pixels; and

an image converting device which converts a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional image,

wherein the image converting device comprises;

a downscaling unit which downscales a two-dimensional image to generate at least one downscaling image;

a feature map generating unit which extracts feature information from the downscaling image to generate a feature map;

a visual attention calculating unit which generates a low-level attention map based on visual attention of the feature map; and

an image expansion unit which up-scales the low-level attention map,

wherein an increasing gray value is added to image data disposed on an upper portion of the low-level attention map, and 0 or a decreasing gray value is added to image data disposed on a lower portion of the low-level attention map.