Foreground/background segmentation in digital images with differential exposure calculations
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A handheld digital image acquisition system having no photographic film, comprising:
- an apparatus for capturing digital images,a flash unit for providing illumination during image capture,a processor, anda memory having computer-readable code embedded therein for programming the processor to perform a digital segmentation method that comprises;
determining one or more regions that are indicative of a foreground region, or of a background region, or of a background region and a foreground region, within at least one portion of a captured image,wherein said determining comprises comparing said captured image and a reference image of nominally the same scene captured in a temporal range between just before and just after exposure of the captured image,wherein the comparing comprises spatially aligning one or more regions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of pixels corresponding to the at least one portion of said captured image,wherein the captured and reference images have different pixel resolutions, and wherein the method further comprises, prior to said determining, matching the pixel resolutions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of said at least one portion; and
wherein at least one of said captured and reference images being taken with flash.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A digital segmentation method and apparatus determines foreground and/or background within at least one portion of a captured image. The determining includes comparing a captured image to a pre-captured or post captured reference image of nominally the same scene. One of the images is taken with flash and the other without. The system can be implemented as part of a digital camera acquisition chain having effective computation complexity.
34 Citations
30 Claims
-
1. A handheld digital image acquisition system having no photographic film, comprising:
-
an apparatus for capturing digital images, a flash unit for providing illumination during image capture, a processor, and a memory having computer-readable code embedded therein for programming the processor to perform a digital segmentation method that comprises;
determining one or more regions that are indicative of a foreground region, or of a background region, or of a background region and a foreground region, within at least one portion of a captured image,wherein said determining comprises comparing said captured image and a reference image of nominally the same scene captured in a temporal range between just before and just after exposure of the captured image, wherein the comparing comprises spatially aligning one or more regions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of pixels corresponding to the at least one portion of said captured image, wherein the captured and reference images have different pixel resolutions, and wherein the method further comprises, prior to said determining, matching the pixel resolutions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of said at least one portion; and wherein at least one of said captured and reference images being taken with flash. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. A method of digital segmentation involving a handheld digital image acquisition device, the method comprising:
-
determining one or more regions that are indicative of a foreground region, or of a background region, or of a background region and a foreground region, within at least one portion of a captured image, wherein said determining comprises comparing said captured image and a reference image of nominally the same scene captured just before, during, just after or temporally-overlapping exposure of the captured image, wherein the comparing comprises spatially aligning one or more regions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of pixels corresponding to the at least one portion of said captured image, wherein the captured and reference images have different pixel resolutions, and wherein the method further comprises, prior to said determining, matching the pixel resolutions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of said at least one portion; and wherein at least one of said captured and reference images being taken with flash. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
-
-
21. One or more computer-readable storage devices having code embedded therein for programming a processor of a handheld digital image acquisition device to perform a digital segmentation method that comprises:
-
determining one or more regions that are indicative of a foreground region, or of a background region, or of a background region and a foreground region, within at least one portion of a captured image, wherein said determining comprises comparing said captured image and a reference image of nominally the same scene captured in a temporal range between just before and just after exposure of the captured image, wherein the comparing comprises spatially aligning one or more regions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of pixels corresponding to the at least one portion of said captured image, wherein the captured and reference images have different pixel resolutions, and wherein the method further comprises, prior to said determining, matching the pixel resolutions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of said at least one portion; and wherein at least one of said captured and reference images being taken with flash. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
-
Specification