Animated image presentations with personalized digitized images

• US 6,061,532 A
• Filed: 01/30/1997
• Issued: 05/09/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/1995
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
• Original Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
• Inventors: Bell, Cynthia Sue
• Primary Examiner(s): Perkey, W. B.
• Application Number:
  US08/792,820
• Time in Patent Office: 1,195 Days
• Field of Search: 396/429, 396/661, 463/31, 348/587, 348/584, 348/586, 345/113
• US Class Current: 396/661
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/00 Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions gaming systems which provide a financial reward G07F17/32
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/655 by importing photos, e.g. of the player
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/695 Imported photos, e.g. of the player
• CPC Class Codes: G03B 31/06 in which sound track is associated with successively-shown still pictures
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/20 Disc-shaped record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/2512 Floppy disks
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/2545 CDs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/61 wherein solid state memory is used for storing A/V content
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/90 Tape-like record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/024 on tapes G11B27/028, G11B27/029 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/031 Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/032 on tapes G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence

Abstract

Personalized story presentations, such as video movies, are prepared with the aid of a kit including a film camera, pose instruction set and chroma-key backdrop. The camera is preferably a special single-use camera having a visual aid strip seen in the viewfinder showing a series of poses associated with a selected story line. An optional audio accessory is provided to capture spoken phrases and other sounds to be associated with the presentation. The exposed film and sound recording are submitted to a photofinisher/image processor where the images and audio are digitized and incorporated into a preexisting digitized story using existing image processing programs. When completed, the personalized story is recorded on suitable playback media and returned to the customer. The same process can be used to create interactive game programs.

Claims

1. A method of preparing a customized image presentation incorporating personal digitized images into a preexisting image presentation format;

the method comprising;

providing instructions for posing of a subject in a series of predefined poses corresponding to image objects to be incorporated into said preexisting image presentation;

capturing said subject poses on an image capture medium as a sequence of subject pose images;

converting said images on the medium to digitized image signals suitable for digital image processing;

extracting and storing said digitized images of subject poses in an image processing system as sequence of digitized image objects; and

incorporating said digitized image objects into said preexisting image presentation for subsequent display as a customized image presentation.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said customized image presentation is an animated image presentation and said series of predefined posed images comprises a sequence of images forming the animated image presentation.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein portions of a subject pose are separately extracted from a posed image and used to create one or more object images intermediate sequential posed images in the series of predefined posed images to enhance the appearance of animation of the subject in the animated presentation.