IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE, METHOD OF CONTROLLING IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE AND PROGRAM CAUSING COMPUTER TO EXECUTE METHOD

• US 20130050429A1
• Filed: 07/16/2012
• Published: 02/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: SUZUKI, Naho, Nabesako, Hideki, Mizukura, Takami
• Granted Patent: US 9,609,308 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/46
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10004 Still image; Photographic image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10028 Range image; Depth image; 3D point clouds
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/94 based on local image properties, e.g. for local contrast enhancement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/271 wherein the generated image signals comprise depth maps or disparity maps

Abstract

There is provided an image processing device including an image acquisition part acquiring an image; a depth acquisition part acquiring a depth associated with a pixel in the image; a depth conversion part converting the depth in accordance with a function having a characteristic to nonlinearly approach a predetermined value with an increase in the depth; and a storage part storing the converted depth in association with the image.

Claims

1. An image processing device comprising:

an image acquisition part acquiring an image;

a depth acquisition part acquiring a depth associated with a pixel in the image;

a depth conversion part converting the depth in accordance with a function having a characteristic to nonlinearly approach a predetermined value with an increase in the depth; and

a storage part storing the converted depth in association with the image.

2. The image processing device according to claim 1, further comprising a smoothing processing part performing smoothing processing on the image to a degree depending on the converted depth corresponding to the pixel in the image based on a converted depth corresponding to a predetermined pixel in the image.

3. The image processing device according to claim 2, wherein the function is a function with a characteristic that varies depending on a coefficient, and

the smoothing processing part performs the smoothing processing based on the depth converted in accordance with the characteristic.

4. The image processing device according to claim 3, wherein the function is an exponential function defined by the following formula:

Y=α

×

e ̂

(−

β

x), where x is the depth, y is an output, e is a base of natural logarithm, α

is a predetermined constant and β

is the coefficient.

5. The image processing device according to claim 3, wherein the function is an exponential function defined by the following formula:

Y=α

×

{1−

e ̂

(−

β

x)}, where x is the depth, y is an output, e is a base of natural logarithm, α

is a predetermined constant and β

is the coefficient.

6. The image processing device according to claim 3, further comprising a coefficient supply part supplying a value of the coefficient depending on a shooting condition under which the image is captured.

7. The image processing device according to claim 6, wherein the storage part further stores the shooting condition in association with the image, and

the coefficient supply part supplies the coefficient depending on the stored shooting condition.

8. The image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the depth conversion part creates an aggregation of the pixels as a depth image, each pixel having the converted depth value as a pixel value.

9. The image processing device according to claim 8, further comprising a compression part compressing the depth image in accordance with a predetermined image compression format, and

the storage part stores the compressed depth image in association with the image.

10. A method of controlling an image processing device comprising:

acquiring, with an image acquisition part, an image;

acquiring, with a depth acquisition part, a depth associated with a pixel in the image;

converting, with a depth conversion part, the depth in accordance with a function having a characteristic to nonlinearly approach a predetermined value with an increase in the depth; and

storing, with a storage part, the converted depth in association with the image.

11. A program for causing a computer to execute:

acquiring an image;

acquiring a depth associated with a pixel in the image;

converting the depth in accordance with a function having a characteristic to nonlinearly approach a predetermined value with an increase in the depth; and

storing the converted depth in association with the image.