Apparatus and Method of Adjusting Backlighting of Image Displays

• US 20170110069A1
• Filed: 10/12/2016
• Published: 04/20/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/18/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Lucidlogix Technologies Ltd. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Shoshan, Yoel, Oicherman, Boris, Weitzman, Ron
• Granted Patent: US 10,181,298 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/0242 Compensation of deficiencies in the appearance of colours
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/062 Adjustment of illumination source parameters
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/08 Arrangements within a display terminal for setting, manually or automatically, display parameters of the display terminal
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2330/021 Power management, e.g. power saving
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2330/023 using energy recovery or conservation
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/08 Power processing, i.e. workload management for processors involved in display operations, such as CPUs or GPUs
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/144 the light being ambient light
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/18 Use of a frame buffer in a display terminal, inclusive of the display panel
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3413 Details of control of colour illumination sources
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/026 Control of mixing and/or overlay of colours in general G09G5/022 and G09G5/024 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/06 using colour palettes, e.g. look-up tables

Abstract

A method of reducing power consumption in computing devices with a back light display while maintaining image quality and user'"'"'s experience includes reducing the native backlight intensity and increasing native pixel values. The reduction of the backlight intensity and the increase of native pixel values is adjusted so that the observed pixel value to the user is substantially the same as the native backlight intensity and the native pixel values.

Claims

1. A method of reducing power consumption in computing devices having a back light display while maintaining image quality and user'"'"'s experience comprising:

reducing the native backlight intensity; and

,

increasing native pixel values.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the reduction of the backlight intensity and the increase of native pixel values is adjusted so that the observed pixel value to the user is substantially the same as the native backlight intensity and the native pixel values.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising the steps of:

(a) sampling native frame pixels in a frame buffer;

(b) analyzing the native frame pixels to determine native pixel values;

(c) monitoring back light intensity for the sampled native frame pixels;

(d) based on the analyzing and monitoring steps, determining whether power consumption may be reduced for the native frame pixels; and

,

(e) if so, generating a corrected set of pixel values and backlight intensity.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the step (d) further comprises the step of estimating the power consumption to perform the generating step of step (e) compared with the power consumption of generating the corrected set of pixel values and backlight intensity;

and,

determining whether to perform step (e) dependent on the comparing step.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of sampling and analyzing a predetermined number of frames, the sampling including the steps of:

(a) determining the native pixel value and the native backlight intensity of the predetermined number of frames;

(b) calculating expected power consumption savings based on the difference between the estimated cost of frame sampling and analysis and the expected power consumption reduction due to reducing the backlight intensity; and

,

(c) if the difference is at or above a predetermined threshold, implementing the step of reducing native backlight intensity and increasing native pixel values.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of reducing native backlight intensity and increasing native pixel values is performed on an application-by-application basis.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the steps of sampling, analyzing, monitoring, determining and generating are implemented on an application-by-application basis.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the back light display is contained in a battery-powered mobile device.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising providing a non-mobile computing device, the battery-powered mobile device and the non-mobile device being in communication, and wherein one or more frames are preprocessed by the non-mobile computing device in one or more of the steps recited in claim 3 and made available to the mobile device to determine whether to implement step (e) of claim 3, thereby saving power consumption.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising providing a non-mobile computing device, the battery-powered mobile device and the non-mobile computing device being in communication, further comprising the steps of the non-mobile computing device preprocessing one or more frames according to one or more of the steps of claim 3, storing the frames preprocessed, and on demand forwarding the preprocessed frames to the mobile device.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of the mobile device transmitting one or more of:

the user'"'"'s ambient light condition, battery state, backlight intensity, mobile device temperature to the non-mobile computing device, the non-mobile computing device preprocessing the one or more frames in accordance with one or more of the steps of claim 3 based on the data transmitted from the mobile device to implement power consumption savings.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of reducing the backlight intensity and increasing the pixel values are implemented by one or more of:

(a) adding software instructions to a GPU shader to change the pixel values and (b) providing a lookup table (LUT), wherein the LUT is pre-loaded with instructions on an application-by-application basis.

13. An apparatus for reducing power consumption in a computing device, the comprising:

at least one CPU, a memory, one or more sets of instructions contained in the memory, one or more applications running on the computing system, a backlight display, the computing device being capable of controlling native backlight intensity and pixel values;

wherein the at least one CPU reduces power consumption by reducing the native backlight intensity and increases native pixel values.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the CPU reduces power consumption by reducing the native backlight intensity and increases the native pixel values by implementing one or more of the functions:

(a) adding software instructions to a GPU shader to change the pixel values and (b) providing a lookup table (LUT), wherein the LUT is pre-loaded with instructions on an application-by-application basis.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the reduction of the backlight intensity and the increase of native pixel values is adjusted so that the observed pixel value to the user is substantially the same as the native backlight intensity and the native pixel values.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the computing device:

(a) samples native frame pixels in a frame buffer;

(b) analyzes the native frame pixels to determine native pixel values;

(c) monitors back light intensity for the sampled native frame pixels;

(d) based on the results of the analyzing and monitoring, determines whether power consumption may be reduced for the native frame pixels; and

,

(e) if so, generates a corrected set of pixel values and backlight intensity.

17. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the computing device samples and analyzes a predetermined number of frames, the sampling including:

(a) determining the native pixel value and the native backlight intensity of the predetermined number of frames;

(b) calculating expected power consumption savings based on the difference between the estimated cost of frame sampling and analysis and the expected power consumption reduction due to reducing the backlight intensity; and

,

(c) if the difference is at or above a predetermined threshold, implementing the step of reducing native backlight intensity and increasing native pixel values.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the computer device generates, if any, a corrected set of pixel values and backlight intensity on an application-by-application basis.

19. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the back light display is contained in a battery-powered mobile device.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, further comprising providing a non-mobile computing device, the battery-powered mobile device and the non-mobile device being in communication, and wherein one or more frames are preprocessed by the non-mobile computing device in one or more of the steps recited in claim 16 and made available to the mobile device to determine whether it generates a corrected set of pixel values and backlight intensity, thereby saving power consumption.