IMAGE EDITING APPARATUS

• US 20140029804A1
• Filed: 07/24/2013
• Published: 01/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/25/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: KAWAGUCHI, YOSHIFUMI
• Granted Patent: US 9,235,914 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text

Abstract

An image editing apparatus includes an input unit configured to input a moving image stream that includes a plurality of frames, an extracting unit configured to extract a specific subject from at least one of frames included in the input moving image stream, and an image processor configured to determine whether or not to perform a mask processing to the specific subject included in the at least one frame of the input moving image stream according to a predetermined output condition which is defined based on at least an output resolution of the moving image stream to be output, and performs the mask processing to the specific subject based on the determination result.

Claims

1. An image editing apparatus comprising:

an input unit configured to input a moving image stream that includes a plurality of frames;

an extracting unit configured to extract a specific subject from at least one of the frames included in the input moving image stream; and

an image processor configured to determine whether or not to perform a mask processing to the specific subject included in the at least one frame of the input moving image stream according to a predetermined output condition which is defined based on at least an output resolution of the moving image stream to be output, and performs the mask processing to the specific subject based on the determination result.

2. The image editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined output condition is defined based on the output resolution of the moving image stream to be output, a resolution of the input moving image stream, and a size of a region of the specific subject in the input moving image stream.

3. The image editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when a size of the specific subject in the moving image stream to be output is smaller than a predetermined value, the image processor determines that the mask processing is not to be performed on the specific subject, based on the predetermined output condition.

4. The image editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the extracting unit extracts the specific subject at predetermined sampling intervals, and registers information about the extracted specific subject to a predetermined table as the extraction result, and

by referring to the predetermined table, the image processor determines, according to the predetermined output condition, whether or not to perform the mask processing on the specific subject included in the at least one frame of the input moving image stream.

5. The image editing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein

when extracting a subject which has a same feature amount at consecutive sampling intervals, the extracting unit recognizes the subject which has the same feature amount as the specific subject, and

the extracting unit registers information about the extracted subject as the specific subject to the predetermined table, only when at least one of an amount of movement and a variation in size of the recognized specific subject has changed by a predetermined amount or more.

6. The image editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the extracting unit extracts a subject including at least one of a person, a person'"'"'s face, a vehicle, and a license plate of a vehicle, as the specific subject.

7. The image editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the mask processing is at least one of:

blurring an image of the specific subject, applying mosaic on the image of the specific subject, and synthesizing a predetermined image with the image of the specific subject.

8. The image editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when determining that the mask processing is performed to the specific subject, the image processor performs the mask processing to the specific subjects included in one frame to which it is determined to perform the mask processing and frames before and after the one frame among all frames composing the input moving image stream.

9. An image editing apparatus comprising:

an input unit configured to receive a moving image stream that includes a plurality of frames;

an identification unit configured to identify a specific subject from at least one of the frames included in the input moving image stream; and

an image processor configured to determine whether or not to perform a mask processing to the specific subject included in the at least one frame of the input moving image stream according to a predetermined output condition which is defined based on at least an output resolution of the moving image stream to be output, and performs the mask processing to the specific subject based on the determination result.

10. The image editing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the predetermined output condition is defined based on the output resolution of the moving image stream to be output, a resolution of the input moving image stream, and a size of a region of the specific subject in the input moving image stream.