METHODS FOR OBJECT RECOGNITION AND RELATED ARRANGEMENTS

• US 20150016712A1
• Filed: 04/11/2014
• Published: 01/15/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Original Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Inventors: Rhoads, Geoffrey B., Bai, Yang, Rodriguez, Tony F., Rogers, Eliot, Sharma, Ravi K., Lord, John D., Long, Scott, MacIntosh, Brian T., Stach, John, Lyons, Robert G., Eaton, Kurt M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,269,022 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/587 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/22 Matching criteria, e.g. proximity measures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/28 Determining representative reference patterns, e.g. by averaging or distorting; Generating dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/02 Non-photorealistic rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/20 Perspective computation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/00 Three dimensional [3D] modelling, e.g. data description of 3D objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/462 Salient features, e.g. scale invariant feature transforms [SIFT]
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/772 Determining representative reference patterns, e.g. averaging or distorting patterns; Generating dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/647 by matching two-dimensional images to three-dimensional objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/185 from a mobile camera, e.g. for remote control

Abstract

Methods and arrangements involving portable user devices such smartphones and wearable electronic devices are disclosed, as well as other devices and sensors distributed within an ambient environment. Some arrangements enable a user to perform an object recognition process in a computationally- and time-efficient manner. Other arrangements enable users and other entities to, either individually or cooperatively, register or enroll physical objects into one or more object registries on which an object recognition process can be performed. Still other arrangements enable users and other entities to, either individually or cooperatively, associate registered or enrolled objects with one or more items of metadata. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

Claims

1-4. -4. (canceled)

5. A method comprising:

storing, within an object registry, model data and object metadata corresponding to a plurality of physical objects, the model data including data characterizing plural non-coplanar surface regions of different extents and locations and, optionally, data characterizing reflectance for each of said surface regions;

obtaining query data representing a physical object-of-interest, wherein generation of the query data is initiated by a user;

performing an object recognition process on the query data, the object recognition process including processing the query data, in conjunction with the stored model data, to determine whether the object-of-interest corresponds to any of the plurality of physical objects; and

upon determining that the object-of-interest corresponds to at least one of the physical objects, transmitting a result to a device associated with the user, the result including object metadata associated with the at least one of the physical objects determined to correspond to the object-of-interest.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the query data is obtained from the device associated with the user.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the query data is obtained from an ambient device that is not associated with the user.

8. The method of claim 5, making accessible object metadata associated with at least one of the physical objects determined to correspond to the object-of-interest includes making accessible object identifying information identifying the object.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising identifying model data corresponding to a sub-set of the plurality of physical objects based on auxiliary information,

wherein processing the model data comprises processing the identified model data to determine whether the object-of-interest corresponds to any physical object within the sub-set of the plurality of physical objects.