Identifying regions characterized by labeled measurements

• US 9,589,322 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2015
• Issued: 03/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Rae, Adam, Thomee, Bart
• Primary Examiner(s): Liu, Li
• Application Number:
  US14/954,541
• Publication Number:
  US 20160086310A1
• Time in Patent Office: 463 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20016 Hierarchical, coarse-to-fine, multiscale or multiresolution image processing; Pyramid transform
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30004 Biomedical image processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30181 Earth observation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4038 Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/40 using histogram techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/12 Edge-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/50 by performing operations within image blocks; by using histograms, e.g. histogram of oriented gradients [HoG]; by summing image-intensity values; Projection analysis

Abstract

Briefly, the disclosure describes embodiments of methods or apparatuses for processing, such as smoothing, a set of labeled measurements at a variety of scale levels. In one or more non-limiting embodiments purely for illustrative purposes, relatively fine details of labeled measurements may be displayed utilizing a relatively low-scale map, such as a map showing individual towns and/or villages. For display utilizing a relatively higher scale map, such as a map showing larger geopolitical areas, for example, relatively fine details may be omitted.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more processors, coupled to a memory, to;

construct a variety of histograms from a set of labeled measurements at a corresponding variety of scale levels; and

smooth at least some of the variety of histograms, the smoothing to be increased responsive to a command from a user interface to decrease resolution of a displayed map to be generated from the variety of histograms.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors is additionally to:

decrease smoothing of at least one of the variety of histograms responsive to a command from the user interface to increase resolution of the displayed map to be generated from the variety of histograms.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors is additionally to:

identify at least one label region boundary at the variety of scale levels.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the identifying of at least one label region boundary to comprise an identification of one or more sub-regions to be characterized by prominent labels of the set of labeled measurements.

5. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the one or more processors is additionally to:

employ an image processing technique to assist in a formation of the at least one label region boundary, the image processing technique to comprise one or more of the following;

filling, closing, contour tracing, dilation, erosion, or any combination thereof.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors is additionally to:

smooth at least some of the variety of histograms to identify iso-contours at the variety of scale levels.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein to identify the iso-contours at the variety of scale levels is at least partially in response to a construction of the variety of histograms from the set of labeled measurements.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein to smooth the at least some of the variety of histograms to comprise:

utilization of a Gaussian function to have a kernel size consistent with the set of labeled measurements at the variety of scale levels.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the set of labeled measurements comprise labels to be assigned to captured images.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein to smooth the at least some of the variety of histograms to comprise utilization of a spatial bandpass filter to filter spatial frequencies between at least two scale levels of the variety of scale levels.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the utilization of the spatial bandpass filter to scale the set of labeled measurements from a current to a different level in response to a receipt of a zoom command from the user interface.

12. A method comprising:

constructing a variety of histograms from a set of labeled measurements at a corresponding variety of scale levels; and

smoothing at least some of the variety of histograms, wherein smoothing is decreased responsive to a command from a user interface to increase resolution of a displayed map generated from the variety of histograms.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

increasing smoothing responsive to a command from the user interface to decrease resolution of the displayed map generated from the variety of histograms.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

identifying at least one label region boundary at the variety of scale levels.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the identifying of at least one label region boundary comprises identifying one or more label region boundaries of sub-regions characterized by prominent labels of the set of labeled measurements.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

employing an image processing technique to assist in forming the at least one label region boundary, the image processing technique comprising one or more of the following;

filling, closing, contour tracing, dilation, erosion, or any combination thereof.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising smoothing at least some of the variety of histograms to identify iso-contours at the variety of scale levels.

18. An apparatus, comprising:

means for constructing a variety of histograms from a set of labeled measurements at a corresponding variety of scale levels;

means for smoothing at least some of the variety of histograms, the smoothing to be increased responsive to a command from a user interface to decrease resolution of a map generated from the variety of histograms; and

means for displaying the map generated from the variety of histograms.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, further comprising:

means for employing an image processing technique to assist in forming at least one label region boundary displayed by the means for displaying the map generated from the variety of histograms, the image processing technique comprising one or more of the following;

filling, closing, contour tracing, dilation, erosion, or any combination thereof.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the means for employing an image processing technique comprises means for employing a Gaussian function having a kernel size consistent with the set of labeled measurements at the variety of scale levels.