Image processing apparatus, image processing method, and computer product

• US 7,751,586 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2005
• Issued: 07/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Matsubara, Akio
• Primary Examiner(s): Ge; Yuzhen
• Application Number:
  US11/241,178
• Publication Number:
  US 20060067561A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,741 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0057 Compression invariant watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0051 Embedding of the watermark in the spatial domain
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0052 Embedding of the watermark in the frequency domain
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0061 Embedding of the watermark in each block of the image, e.g. segmented watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32144 embedded in the image data, i.e. enclosed or integrated in the image, e.g. watermark, super-imposed logo or stamp
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/3217 using wavelet transforms
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32187 with selective or adaptive application of the additional information, e.g. in selected frequency coefficients
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32277 Compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3233 of authentication information, e.g. digital signature, watermark
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/327 which are undetectable to the naked eye, e.g. embedded codes

Abstract

An image processing apparatus includes a determining unit that determines at least one embed area in an area that is not accessed by an application in an image. An embedding unit embeds at least one piece of embed information into the embed area. A quantizer quantizes the image embedded with the embed information. An encoder encodes the image quantized.

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus comprising:

a determining unit to determine an embed area of an image, wherein the embed area is within an area of the image that is not accessed by an application that uses an access area of the image;

an embedding unit to embed at least one piece of embed information into the embed area determined by the determining unit, wherein the embedding unit enlarges the embed area by an enlargement amount to accommodate the at least one piece of embed information when the at least one piece of embed information is too large to be embedded into the embed area, and wherein the enlargement amount is determined by subtracting a size of the at least one piece of embed information from a difference between a size of the image and a size of the access area of the image that is accessed by the application;

a quantizer to quantize the image embedded with the at least one piece of embed information; and

an encoder to encode the image quantized by the quantizer.

2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the determining unit determines the embed area based on a size of the image.

3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the determining unit determines the embed area based on a size of the at least one piece of embed information.

4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the encoder encodes the image based on JPEG2000.

5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the determining unit rewrites a size of an encoding area stored in an Image Header Box of a file format prescribed in IS15444-1 JPEG2000 Part 1 into a size of an encoding area including the embed area.

6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein

the determining unit rewrites a size in a horizontal direction (Xsiz) of the encoding area including the embed area.

7. The image processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein

the determining unit rewrites a size in a vertical direction (Ysiz) of the encoding area including the embed area.

8. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the determining unit determines an area surrounding the image as the embed area.