METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING A VEHICLE HISTORY REPORT FROM AN IMAGE

• US 20170372141A1
• Filed: 08/21/2017
• Published: 12/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blinker Inc.
• Original Assignee: Blinker Inc.
• Inventors: WILBERT, Anthony Russell, WACH, Hans Brandon, CHUNG, David Ching-Chien
• Granted Patent: US 10,192,114 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/532 Query formulation, e.g. graphical querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/174 involving the use of two or more images
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/20 in augmented reality scenes
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/625 License plates
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/63 Scene text, e.g. street names

Abstract

Some aspects of the invention relate to a mobile apparatus including an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal. The optical image includes an image of a vehicle license plate. The mobile apparatus includes a license plate detector configured to process the electrical signal to recover information from the vehicle license plate image. The mobile apparatus includes an interface configured to transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus and receive a vehicle history report corresponding to the vehicle license plate image in response to the transmission.

Claims

1. A mobile apparatus, comprising:

an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, the optical image including an image of a vehicle license plate;

a license plate detector configured to;

process, by a processor, the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,

process, by the processor, the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images,

process, by the processor, the electrical signal to recover information from the vehicle license plate image; and

an interface configured to transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus and receive a vehicle history report corresponding to the vehicle license plate image in response to the transmission.

2. The mobile apparatus of claim 1, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to process the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more of the object images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image.

6. The mobile apparatus of claim 1, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to recover the information from a portion of the electrical signal corresponding to the selected one of said identified one or more of the object images.

7. The mobile apparatus of claim 2, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to process the electrical signal to dewarp at least one of said one or more of the object images.

8. The mobile apparatus of claim 2, further comprising a display and a rendering module configured to render the optical image to the display and overlay a detection indicator on each of said identified one or more of the object images in the optical image.

9. The mobile apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an image filter configured to:

apply a set of filter parameters to the electrical signal; and

dynamically adjust the parameters based on at least one of color temperature, ambient light, object image location, and the location of the apparatus.

3-5. -5. (canceled)

10. A mobile apparatus, comprising:

an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, wherein the optical image comprises a plurality of object images, and wherein one of the plurality of object images comprises an image of a vehicle license plate;

a license plate detector configured to;

process, by a processor, the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,

process, by the processor, the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images,

process, by the processor the electrical signal to recover information from the vehicle license plate image from a portion of the electrical signal corresponding to said one of the plurality of object images; and

an interface configured to transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus and receive a vehicle history report corresponding to the vehicle license plate image in response to the transmission.

11. The mobile apparatus of claim 10, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to process the electrical signal to dewarp said one of the object images prior to recovering the information.

12. The mobile apparatus of claim 10, further comprising a display and a rendering module configured to render the optical image to the display and overlay a detection indicator on each of the plurality of object images.

13. The mobile apparatus of claim 10, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to process the electrical signal to score each of the plurality of object images based on a probability that the each of the plurality of object images comprises the vehicle license plate image.

14. The mobile apparatus of claim 13, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to select said one of the plurality of object images based on the selected object image'"'"'s score.

15. The mobile apparatus of claim 12, wherein the rendering module is further configured to overlay a first detection indicator over said one of the plurality of object images and a second detection indicator over the other object images of said plurality of object images.

16. The mobile apparatus of claim 15, wherein the rendering module is further configured to cause the first detection indicator to appear visually different from the second detection indicator on the display.

17. A mobile apparatus, comprising:

an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, the optical image comprising an image of a vehicle license plate;

a display;

a rendering module configured to render the optical image to the display;

an image filter configured to apply one or more filter parameters to the electrical signal based on at least one of color temperature of the image, ambient light, and motion of the apparatus; and

a license plate detector configured to;

process, by a processor, the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,

process, by the processor, the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images,

process, by the processor the electrical signal to recover information from the vehicle license plate image;

wherein the rendering module is further configured to overlay a detection indicator on the displayed optical image to assist the user position of the apparatus with respect to the optical image in response to a signal from the image filter, and

wherein the rendering module is further configured to provide an alert to the display when the license plate detector fails to recover the vehicle license plate information; and

an interface configured to transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus and receive a vehicle history report corresponding to the vehicle license plate image in response to the transmission.

18. The mobile apparatus of claim 17, wherein the optical image comprises a plurality of object images, and wherein the license plate detector is further configured to process the electrical signal to identify one or more of the plurality of object images from the image, each of said one or more of the plurality of object images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image.

21. The mobile apparatus of claim 18, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to process the electrical signal to dewarp at least one of said one or more of the plurality of object images.

19. (canceled)

20. (canceled)

22. A computer program product for a mobile apparatus having an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, the optical image including a plurality of object images, wherein one of the object images comprises an image of a vehicle license plate, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory machine readable medium comprising code to;

process the electrical signal to select said one of the object images;

process the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,

process the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images;

process a portion of the electrical signal corresponding to the selected said one of the object images to recover information from the vehicle license plate image;

transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus; and

receive a vehicle history report corresponding to the vehicle license plate image in response to the transmission.

23. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the code to process the electrical signal is configured to process the electrical signal to identify one or more of the object images from the image, each of said one or more of the object images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image.

26. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the code to process the electrical signal is further configured to select said one of the object images from said identified one or more of the object images based on the scores.

27. The computer program product of claim 26, wherein the code to process the electrical signal is further configured to recover the information from a portion of the electrical signal corresponding to the selected one of said identified one or more of the object images.

28. The computer program product of claim 23, wherein the code for processing the electrical signal is further configured to dewarp at least one of said one or more of the object images.

24. (canceled)

25. (canceled)

29. A mobile apparatus, comprising:

an image sensor configured to convert an optical image into an electrical signal, the optical image including an image of a vehicle license plate;

a timing circuit configured to sample the electrical signal at a frame rate;

a license plate detector configured to;

process, by a processor, the electrical signal to identify one or more object images from the image, each of said one or more images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image,

process, by the processor, the electrical signal to crop the image to said identified one or more of the object images,

process, by the processor the sampled electrical signal to recover information from the vehicle license plate image; and

an interface configured to transmit the vehicle license plate information to a remote apparatus and receive a vehicle history report corresponding to the vehicle license plate image in response to the transmission.

30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the sampled electrical signal comprises a plurality of samples, and wherein the license plate detector is further configured to identify one or more object images from at least one of the plurality of samples.

31. The apparatus of claim 30, wherein at least one of said one or more of the object images comprising a candidate vehicle license plate image.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to process said at least one of the plurality of samples to score each of said one or more of the object images based on a probability that the object image comprises the vehicle license plate image.

33. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to process at least first and second samples of the plurality of samples to score each of said one or more of the object images from each of said at least first and second samples.

34. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein each of said one or more object images detected in the first sample is associated with location information, and wherein the license plate detector is further configured to use the location information to estimate the location of said one or more of the objects in the second sample.

35. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the license plate detector is further configured to stop processing the sampled electrical signal when said score is above a threshold value.

36. The apparatus of claim 30, further comprising

a display, wherein each sample represents a frame of a video image presented to the display;

and

a rendering module configured to render each frame of the video image to the display and overlay a detection indicator on each of said identified one or more of the object images.

37. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the overlay provides a visual indication of the object image associated with the score that is above a threshold value.