Automated cropping of electronic images
First Claim
1. An electronic image processor for cropping an electronic image, the image processor adapted to:
- a) process the electronic image to identify one or more features relevant to the composition of the electronic image;
b) select at least one compositional rule from a plurality of predetermined compositional rules, based on the relevance of the compositional rule(s) to one or more of the identified features;
c) determine one or more suitable crop boundaries by applying the selected compositional rules;
d) generate a number of crop candidates corresponding to said crop boundaries;
e) generate minimum and maximum crop limits for each of the crop candidates;
f) evaluate suitable candidate crop boundaries between the minimum and maximum crop limits by generating a measure of quality for each candidate crop boundary in accordance with at least one quality metric; and
g) select a reduced number of crop candidates as output candidates based on the measure of quality generated in the evaluating step.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention relates to the automated and semi-automated cropping of electronic images, and in particular to an apparatus and a method of using an electronic camera to capture and crop such electronic images. An electronic imaging processing device (1) for cropping an electronic image comprises an image processing means (6,8), the image processing means including an electronic processor (6) and firmware and/or software for processing the electronic image. The device (1) processes the electronic image to identify one or more features relevant to the composition of the electronic image, each such feature having one or more compositionally significant properties from amongst a plurality of different predetermined compositional properties, and each such feature occupying a sub-region of the electronic image. Then the device (1) selects one or more compositional rules from a set of predetermined compositional rules, based on the relevance of the compositional rule(s) to the compositionally significant properties of one or more of the identified features. Then the device (1) determines one or more suitable crop boundaries by applying one or more of the selected compositional rules.
134 Citations
41 Claims
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1. An electronic image processor for cropping an electronic image, the image processor adapted to:
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a) process the electronic image to identify one or more features relevant to the composition of the electronic image; b) select at least one compositional rule from a plurality of predetermined compositional rules, based on the relevance of the compositional rule(s) to one or more of the identified features; c) determine one or more suitable crop boundaries by applying the selected compositional rules; d) generate a number of crop candidates corresponding to said crop boundaries; e) generate minimum and maximum crop limits for each of the crop candidates; f) evaluate suitable candidate crop boundaries between the minimum and maximum crop limits by generating a measure of quality for each candidate crop boundary in accordance with at least one quality metric; and g) select a reduced number of crop candidates as output candidates based on the measure of quality generated in the evaluating step. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. An electronic image processor method, comprising:
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processing an electronic image to identify compositionally significant features within the image, sorting the compositionally significant features according to at least one compositional rule into those features which are to be included within cropped versions of the image and those features which are to be excluded from cropped versions of the image, automatically generating a plurality of candidate crops based on the sorted compositionally significant features, wherein each of the candidate crops is not merely the smallest crop that encloses a feature which is to be included, generating minimum and maximum crop limits for each of the candidate crops, identifying suitable crop candidate boundaries between the minimum and maximum crop limits for each of the candidate crops, by generating a measure of quality in accordance with at least one quality metric, and selecting a reduced number of crop candidates as output candidates based on the measure of quality generated in the identifying step. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13)
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14. An electronic image processor, comprising:
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an analyzer unit configured to analyse an image to identify compositionally significant features therein; a compositional rule application unit configured to apply at least one composition rule so as to generate a plurality of constraints; a candidate crop generation unit configured to apply the constraints to the image to generate a plurality of minimum and maximum candidate crops each one having a measurement associated therewith indicating the extent to which the constraints are violated; an identifying unit configured to identify suitable crop candidate boundaries between the minimum and maximum crop limits for each of the candidate crops, by generating a measure of quality in accordance with at least one quality metric; and a presenting unit configured to present at least one of the candidate crops to a user, in accordance with the generated measure of quality. - View Dependent Claims (15)
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16. A method of using an electronic image processing device for cropping an electronic image, the image processing device comprising an image processing means, the image processing means including at least one of an electronic processor, firmware and software for processing the electronic image, wherein the method comprises the steps of using the image processing means to:
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i) process the electronic image to identify at least one feature relevant to the composition of the electronic image each such feature occupying a sub-region of the electronic image; ii) select at least one compositional rule from a set comprising a plurality of predetermined compositional rules, based on the relevance of the compositional rule(s) to at least one of the identified features; and iii) determine at least one suitable crop boundary for a plurality of crop candidates by applying one or more of the selected compositional rules, in which; step (i) includes identifying features which constitute non-overlapping segmented regions of interest; step (iii) is achieved by first selecting alternative divisions of said identified regions of interest into those which will be included by the crop boundary and those which will be excluded by the crop boundary; each such alternative division of regions of interest is used to determine an inner crop boundary limit and an outer crop boundary limit such that the inner crop boundary limit is the smallest boundary which circumscribes the regions of interest to be included and the outer crop boundary limit is the largest boundary which excludes the regions of interest to be excluded; and said one or more suitable crop boundaries are determined between the limits of the inner and outer crop boundary limits for each of said alternative divisions of regions of interest. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
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36. A method of cropping an electronic image, comprising the steps of:
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i) processing the image to identify at least one distinct feature within the image, ii) selecting at least two compositional rules relevant to the at least one feature, the compositional rules determining the possible inclusion and placement of the feature within a cropped version of the image; iii) determining at least one minimum and at least one maximum crop boundary for a cropped version of the image in accordance with the selected compositional rules; and iv) determining an appropriate crop boundary between the minimum and maximum crop boundary for the image, based on at least one of;
a) lowest brightness level as compared to adjacent regions, b) smallest color activity as compared to adjacent regions, and c) lowest saliency as compared to adjacent regions, the appropriate crop boundary corresponding to a particular column of the image, the adjacent regions corresponding to left and right columns of the image abutting the particular column. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
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Specification