AUTOMATED DEFINITION OF SYSTEM BEHAVIOR OR USER EXPERIENCE BY RECORDING, SHARING, AND PROCESSING INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH WIDE-ANGLE IMAGE

• US 20150281507A1
• Filed: 03/25/2015
• Published: 10/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ImmerVision Inc. (f/k/a 6115187 Canada Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ImmerVision Inc. (f/k/a 6115187 Canada Inc.)
• Inventors: KONEN, Pierre, NINI, Pascale, PARENT, Jocelyn, ROULET, Patrice, THIBAULT, Simon, ZHANG, Hu, GOSSELIN, Marie-Eve, BATAILLE, Valentin
• Granted Patent: US 10,516,799 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/00 2D [Two Dimensional] image generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/2112 using still video cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/81 for suppressing or minimising disturbance in the image signal generation

Abstract

Systems and methods in accordance with the invention allow automatic recording, sharing, and communicating of different parameters associated with images and their imager to define a specific system behavior of a display device or an algorithm unit. Examples of information include imager parameters, environment parameters, image processing and enhancement parameters, coordinates of a section of wide-angle scene image content, display parameters, defined user experience, defined system behavior or any information to be recorded, shared, and communicated. To avoid loss of information, the information is encoded directly in the picture using a marker. This way, the information is robustly transferred from the imager to the display unit. According to the information, the final image can be automatically corrected and enhanced before display, different associated parameters can be displayed on final image or be used with another output. The end user experience or system behavior can thus be defined and be reproduced.

Claims

1. A system for automatically defining a user experience or system behavior related to a scene image content using a marked image, the system comprising:

(a) an imager configured to capture or generate the scene image content; and

(b) an encoding unit configured to receive the scene image content from the imager and combine the scene image content with at least one marker to create the marked image, the marker encoding at least one imager parameter that is used by the display device or the algorithm unit to automatically define the user experience or system behavior.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the imager includes at least one camera module configured to capture an image.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the at least one imager parameter includes at least one camera module parameter or an external parameter, the system further comprising a camera module parameter unit that transfer the at least one camera module parameter or external parameter to the encoding unit and an external unit that can provides additional external parameter directly to the encoding unit.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the external unit comprises a sensor unit and the external parameter is a sensor parameter.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the imager is a wide-angle imager.

6. The system of claim 1 where the imager parameters are at least one of an orientation of the imager, scene image content position, orientation and size, an imager model, a speed or acceleration of the imager, an entry point or a zone of interest.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the marker is one of a human-readable code, a machine-readable code, or a watermark.

8. The system of claim 7, where the marker is a QR code.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the user experience or system behavior further include processing a distortion of the captured image according to the at least one imager parameter, the at least one imager parameter including at least one of a lens distortion profile, a field of view of the distorted image, a position inside the distorted image of a central optical axis, orientation of an image footprint, orientation and coordinates of one or more narrow fields of view, a relative illumination of a lens, digital zoom level, a preferred point of interest, or image enhancement parameters.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the user experience or system behavior further include processing a distortion of the captured image according to the at least one imager parameter, the at least one imager parameter including a unique identification code related to a database containing at least one of a distortion profile, field of view, or localized relative illumination of a lens of the imager.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the imager parameters includes a navigation path in the scene image content.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the marker is located in a corner of the marked image or in an added margin of the marked image.

13. The system of claim 2, wherein the camera module includes at least a lens and an image sensor configured to capture an image received by the lens.

14. The system of claim 2, wherein the camera module is a digital processor configured to capture an image from a virtual environment.

15. The system of claim 2, wherein at least a portion of the camera module parameters are generated automatically by analyzing the scene image content captured by the camera module.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the marked image is divided into a plurality of image parts, each of the plurality of image parts including a respective marker, and wherein data for processing the marked image includes a cross reference to the plurality of image parts.

17. A system for automatically defining a user experience or system behavior related to a scene image content captured by an imager using a marked image, the marked image including the scene image content and at least one marker, the system comprising:

(a) an image processing unit configured to process the scene image according to the defined user experience or system behavior;

(b) a marker detector configured to identify and extract the marker from the marked image; and

(c) a marker decoder configured to decode the marker and output imager parameters encoded in the marker, the imager parameters including at least data that is used by the image processing unit to automatically define the user experience or system behavior.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the image processing unit further receives data from a source external to the system, the image processing unit being configured to further process the scene image content based in part on the external data.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the imager parameters include at least one of user-selected viewing orientations and coordinates, digital zoom level, a preferred point of interest, image enhancement parameters, image brightness, image contrast, saturation, or color temperature.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the marker is one of a human-readable code, a machine-readable code, or a watermark.

21. The system of claim 20, where the marker is a QR code.

22. The system of claim 17, wherein the defined user experience or system behavior include processing a distortion of the scene image content according to the imager parameters, the imager parameters including a unique identification code related to a database containing at least one of a distortion profile, field of view, or localized relative illumination of a lens.

23. The system of claim 17, wherein the defined user experience or system behavior include processing a distortion of the scene image content according to the imager parameters, the imager parameters including at least one of a lens distortion profile, a field of view of the distorted image, a position inside the distorted image of a central optical axis, orientation of an image footprint, orientation and coordinates of one or more narrow fields of view, a relative illumination of a lens, digital zoom level, a preferred point of interest, or image enhancement parameters.

24. The system of claim 17, wherein the image processing unit is configured to further process the scene image content based in part on at least one of a lens shading compensation, lateral color compensation, color correction, white balance, de-noise, sharpen, dynamic expansion, virtual exposure, pixel interpolation, pixel subsampling or custom cropping zone.

25. The system of claim 17, wherein the marker is one of located in a corner of the marked image or provided in an added margin of the marked image.

26. A system for automatically defining a user experience or system behavior related to a scene image content captured by an imager using a marked image, the marked image including the scene image content and a marker, the system comprising:

(a) an image processing unit configured to process the marked image and output the imager parameters or indicators based on the image parameters

(b) a marker detector configured to identify and extract the marker from the marked image; and

(c) a marker decoder configured to decode the marker and output imager parameters encoded in the marker, the imager parameters including at least data that is used by the image processing unit to automatically define the user experience or system behavior.