665results about How to "Improve visual quality" patented technology

The present invention discloses methods of digitally converting 2D motion pictures or any other 2D image sequences to stereoscopic 3D image data for 3D exhibition. In one embodiment, various types of image data cues can be collected from 2D source images by various methods and then used for producing two distinct stereoscopic 3D views. Embodiments of the disclosed methods can be implemented within a highly efficient system comprising both software and computing hardware. The architectural model of some embodiments of the system is equally applicable to a wide range of conversion, re-mastering and visual enhancement applications for motion pictures and other image sequences, including converting a 2D motion picture or a 2D image sequence to 3D, re-mastering a motion picture or a video sequence to a different frame rate, enhancing the quality of a motion picture or other image sequences, or other conversions that facilitate further improvement in visual image quality within a projector to produce the enhanced images.

A method of designing a multifocal ophthalmic lens with one base focus and at least one additional focus, capable of reducing aberrations of the eye for at least one of the foci after its implantation, comprising the steps of: (i) characterizing at least one corneal surface as a mathematical model; (ii) calculating the resulting aberrations of said corneal surface(s) by employing said mathematical model; (iii) modelling the multifocal ophthalmic lens such that a wavefront arriving from an optical system comprising said lens and said at least one corneal surface obtains reduced aberrations for at least one of the foci. There is also disclosed a method of selecting a multifocal intraocular lens, a method of designing a multifocal ophthalmic lens based on corneal data from a group of patients, and a multifocal ophthalmic lens.

A method and apparatus for scalable coding of a motion vector generated during motion estimation, in which a generated motion vector field is separated into a base layer and an enhancement layer according to pixel accuracies to obtain a layered structure for a motion vector. In addition, the motion vector field has a layered structure including a base layer composed of motion vectors of blocks larger than or equal to a predetermined size and at least one enhancement layer composed of motion vectors of blocks smaller than a predetermined size.

Systems and methods are provided for an interactive and collaborative computing device. One example device enables users to establish a communicative link with the interactive and collaborative computing device such that each user may view and share information whether in a local or remote interactive and collaborative environment. The systems and methods described herein further provide a way for users to annotate content displayed on the interactive and collaborative computing device by providing annotative input via another computing device.

A method of generating a character from an image. The method includes providing an image depicting a character, identifying, automatically by a processor, characteristic lines in the image, receiving an indication of a character to be cut from the image, and suggesting border lines for the character to be cut from the image, responsive to the identified characteristic lines and the received indication.

Transmittance of light through a pupil or to the retina of a patient's eye is controlled to improve night vision. In one example, this involves providing an ocular device in the form of a contact lens having a central, disk shaped clear window having a diameter that is custom designed based high-order aberrations in an eye and less than the diameter of the patient's pupil at night. The ocular device also has an annular portion that surrounds the disk shaped window portion. The annular portion comprises material that provides reduced light transmittance to provide controlled light transmission at pupil periphery at night and to the retina of a patient. Such controlled light transmittance can reduce photon noise that otherwise can exacerbate halos and ghosts that one can experience at night and/or it can improve night vision contrast. In the case of a contact lens and corneal inlay, light transmittance is controlled across the cornea. In the case of an intraocular lens, light transmittance is controlled across the pupil.

An intraocular lens comprises optical part configured to be implanted in an eye of a subject. The intraocular lens further comprises at least one aspheric surface configured, in combination with a lens in the capsular bag of an eye, to reduce an aberration of a wavefront passing the eye. The aberrations may include astigmatism, coma, and/or spherical aberrations. An aberration of the intraocular lens may be expressed as a linear combination of Zernike polynomial terms that may include a Zernike coefficient a₁₁. The Zernike coefficient a₁₁ may be selected to reduce a spherical aberration of a wavefront passing the eye and/or to compensate for an average value resulting from a predetermined number of estimations of the Zernike coefficient a₁₁ in a population of corneas and capsular bag lenses.

Quality settings established by an encoder are adjusted based on information associated with regions of interest (“ROIs”). For example, quantization step sizes can be reduced (to improve quality) or increased (to reduce bit rate). ROIs can be identified and quality settings can be adjusted based on input received from a user interface. An overlap setting can be determined for a portion of a picture that corresponds to an ROI overlap area. For example, an overlap setting is chosen from step sizes corresponding to a first overlapping ROI and a second overlapping ROI, or from relative reductions in step size corresponding to the first ROI and the second ROI. ROIs can be parameterized by information (e.g., using data structures) that indicates spatial dimensions of the ROIs and quality adjustment information (e.g., dead zone information, step size information, and quantization mode information).

A method, program product and apparatus for encoding a scalable bit stream from the binarization results of a video sequence by selectively encoding syntax elements and avoiding redundancy in coding. The result is a decrease in the size of the compressed bit stream of an enhancement layer. One method includes determining whether a skipping flag in the base layer macro block of the video data is set, and encoding an enhancement layer macro block of the video data, corresponding to the base layer macro block, with a skipping flag only if the base layer macro block skipping flag is set. Another method includes determining which of a plurality of blocks in a base layer macro block contain zero coefficients, generating a coded block pattern (CBP) of an enhancement layer macro block, where the CBP includes a number of digits equal to the number of blocks in said base layer macro block containing only zero coefficients, and then encoding the CBP of the enhancement layer. Yet another method includes encoding a CBP value of a base layer macro block and differentially encoding a CBP value of an enhancement layer macro block relative to the CBP of the base layer macro block. An additional method includes determining the zero-value coefficients in a block of a base layer, determining whether any of the zero-coefficients become non-zero coefficients in a corresponding block in an enhancement layer, and encoding a coding block flag in an enhancement layer based on that determination.

An area control section individually sets illumination intensity (light control value) of each backlight cell corresponding to each area of the display screen. A spatial filter corrects the light control values so that spatial distribution of the light control values becomes more moderate between adjoining areas. A black area control section sets the minimum value of the light control value based on a “black area” in the screen. A power control section corrects the light control values so that power consumption of the backlight does not exceed a limit value. A shading control section corrects the light control values to relatively lower brightness in the peripheral part of the screen compared to the central part of the screen. A micro-controller switches the operations of the above light control value correcting sections according to an image display mode selected by the user.

Constant-bitrate rate control is very useful for real-time video transmission. However, it is difficult to realize a good CBR rate control in an MPEG4-AVC video codec. According to the invention, an adapted ρ-domain rate control processing for real-time rate control is applied, whereby ρ is the percentage of zero amplitude transform coefficients following quantisation. A couple of tables are used for mapping between the quantization parameters and ρ. A detailed analysis at transform-level is carried out in order to get the slope of the relationship between the bitrate and ρ. The slope of the linear model is constrained by a look-ahead procedure with respect to the neighbour frames or blocks.

In an automatic fingerprint authentication or identification system, the fingerprint image acquisition is severely effected by the limitations of the acquisition process. The two modes of input, viz. scanning inked fingerprints from paper records or directly from a finger using live-scan fingerprint scanners suffer from the following noise sources in the input in addition to standard noise in the camera. Non-uniform ink application, uneven pressure while rolling on the paper or pressing on the scanner surface and external dirt like oil and climatic variations in the moisture content of skin are some of the main causes for the ridges and valleys not to be imaged clearly. This invention deals with a method of learning a set of partitioned least-sqaures filters that can be derived from a given set of images and ground truth pairs as an offline process. The learned filters are convolved with input fingerprint images to obtain the enhanced image.

A system and method provide a video coding system for adaptively transcoding videos based on video coding complexity (VCC). A VCC engine of the system is configured to generate a measure of how difficult to encode a source video based on a trained VCC model. A video rate-distortion modeling engine of the system is configured to estimate a rate-distortion model and a scaling model. The VCC model, rate-distortion model and the scaling model are trained on a video corpus of the system. The trained VCC model, rate-distortion model and the scaling model are used by an adaptive bitrate transcoding sub-system to transcode a source video with an optimized bitrate and visual quality. The trained VCC model, rate-distortion model and the scaling model are further used by an adaptive resolution transcoding sub-system to transcode a source video with an optimized resolution and visual quality.

The present invention relates to a plastic component having a visible part that is made in one single layer from a plastic molding compound and that comprises a transparent or translucent matrix, and having a light source that comprises one or more lamp elements, situated under the surface of the visible part. The visible part is implemented as essentially opaque in relation to daylight and transparent or translucent in relation to the light emitted by the lamp elements. The visible part also contains admixed effect pigments and defines a surface appearance image which, when the light source is inactive, essentially corresponds to the surface appearance image of the remaining wall of an object in which the plastic component is installed and which, when the light source is active, is essentially determined by the light source activity. The plastic component according to the invention is characterized in that the lamp elements are selected from a group which comprises light-emitting diodes, organic light-emitting diodes, and fiber-optic light systems, the lamp elements at least partially being embedded in the plastic molding compound of the visible part. The manifold uses of this plastic component comprise installation in vehicles, paneling elements, and furniture, as well as in housings of greatly varying devices.

An ophthalmic lens with premium vision corrections provides significantly improved visual acuity and contrast sensitivity. The premium vision corrections include precisely correcting for two aberration mode sets simultaneously, second-order astigmatism and fourth-order spherical aberration, instead of correcting for only second-order astigmatism or simultaneously correcting for all aberrations present. Fourth-order astigmatism, sixth-order spherical aberration, and third-order coma are additionally corrected in other premium vision correction schemes. In addition, methods are provided for prescribing and fabricating the premium vision lenses to permit mass customization.