DYNAMIC MULTI-WINDOWED IMAGE ENHANCEMENT FOR INTERACTIVE HOV DETECTION

• US 20150097952A1
• Filed: 10/09/2013
• Published: 04/09/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Conduent Business Services, LLC (Conduent, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Eschbach, Reiner, Xu, Beilei, Paul, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 9,420,171 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/148
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/40 using histogram techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/94 based on local image properties, e.g. for local contrast enhancement
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/54 of traffic, e.g. cars on the road, trains or boats
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/80 Camera processing pipelines; Components thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source

Abstract

A system and method for enhancing images including an image capture device operably connected to a data processing device that captures an image of a target vehicle, and a processor-usable medium embodying computer code, said processor-usable medium being coupled to said data processing device, said computer program code comprising instructions executable by said processor. The instructions configured for identifying a region within the image including a window of the target vehicle, applying a first image enhancement effect to the identified region, applying a second image enhancement effect to a remainder of the image not including the identified region, the second image enhancement effect different than the first image enhancement effect.

Claims

1. A system for enhancing images comprising:

an image capture device operably connected to a data processing device that captures an image of a target vehicle; and

a processor-usable medium embodying computer code, said processor-usable medium being coupled to said data processing device, said computer program code comprising instructions executable by said processor and configured for;

identifying a region within the image including a window of the target vehicle;

applying a first image enhancement effect to the identified region;

applying a second image enhancement effect to a remainder of the image not including the identified region, the second image enhancement effect different than the first image enhancement effect.

2. A system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the first and second image enhancement effects include a histogram transformation.

3. A system as set forth in claim 2, wherein the first image enhancement effect includes a histogram transformation including a blind histogram stretching.

4. A system as set forth in claim 3, wherein the image capture device generates a 10-bit video signal, and the blind histogram stretching is performed using the lowest 8 bits of the 10bit signal.

5. A system as set forth in claim 3, wherein the second image enhancement effect includes a histogram transformation utilizing substantially the entire dynamic range of the image.

6. A system as set forth in claim 5, wherein the histogram transformation is applied to a modified histogram.

7. A system as set forth in claim 6, wherein the modified histogram is generated using:

Histogram_mod=H^X(bin), where Histogram_mod represents the modified histogram, H represents the horizontal number of pixels of the image capture device, and 0.5≦

X≦

0.8.

8. A system as set forth in claim 7, wherein X=0.7.

9. A system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the first image enhancement effect and the second image enhancement effect are performed at the same time.

10. A computer implemented method of enhancing an image comprising:

identifying a target vehicle within the image;

identifying a region within the image including a window of the target vehicle;

applying a first image enhancement effect to the identified region;

applying a second image enhancement effect to a remainder of the image not including the identified region, the second image enhancement effect different than the first image enhancement effect.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first and second image enhancement effects include a histogram transformation.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the first image enhancement effect includes a histogram transformation including a blind histogram stretching.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the second image enhancement effect includes a histogram transformation utilizing substantially the entire dynamic range of the image.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the histogram transformation is applied to a modified histogram generated using:

Histogram_mod=H^X(bin), where Histogram_mod represents the modified histogram, H represents the horizontal number of pixels of the image capture device, and 0.5≦

X≦

0.8.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein X=0.7.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the first image enhancement effect and the second image enhancement effect are performed at the same time.

17. A non-transitory computer-usable medium for enhancing an image, said computer-usable medium embodying a computer program code, said computer program code comprising computer executable instructions configured for:

identifying a target vehicle within the image;

identifying a region within the image including a window of the target vehicle;

applying a first image enhancement effect to the identified region;

applying a second image enhancement effect to a remainder of the image not including the identified region, the second image enhancement effect different than the first image enhancement effect.

18. The non-transitory computer-usable medium of claim 17, wherein the first and second image enhancement effects include a histogram transformation.

19. The non-transitory computer-usable medium of claim 18, wherein the histogram transformation is applied to a modified histogram generated using:

Histogram_mod=H^X(bin), where Histogram_mod represents the modified histogram, H represents the horizontal number of pixels of the image capture device, and 0.5≦

X≦

0.8.

20. The non-transitory computer-usable medium of claim 19, wherein X=0.7.