593 results about "Color imaging" patented technology

An endoscopic video system and method using a camera with a single color image sensor, for example a CCD color image sensor, for fluorescence and color imaging and for simultaneously displaying the images acquired in these imaging modes at video rates in real time is disclosed. The tissue under investigation is illuminated continuously with fluorescence excitation light and is further illuminated periodically using visible light outside of the fluorescence excitation wavelength range. The illumination sources may be conventional lamps using filters and shutters, or may include light-emitting diodes mounted at the distal tip of the endoscope.

In the color imaging system, multiple rendering devices are provided at different nodes along a network. Each rendering device has a color measurement instrument for calibrating the color presented by the rendering device. A rendering device may represent a color display in which a member surrounds the outer periphery of the screen of the display and a color measuring instrument is coupled to the first member. The color measuring instrument includes a sensor spaced from the screen at an angle with respect to the screen for receiving light from an area of the screen. A rendering device may be a printer in which the measuring of color samples on a sheet rendered by the printer is provided by a sensor coupled to a transport mechanism which moves the sensor and sheet relative to each other, where the sensor provides light from the sample to a spectrograph. The color measuring instruments provide for non-contact measurements of color samples either displayed on a color display, or printed on a sheet, and are self-calibrating by the use of calibration references in the instrument.

A color mapping method is used in transforming colors between color imaging systems. The method includes using forward transformation profiles that characterize the color imaging systems to generate respective sets of device-independent color values for the color imaging systems. Color conversions are calculated by reducing differences between the respective sets of device-independent color values. Based on these color conversions, a color map is constructed that describes a relationship between the color imaging systems.

A digital color imager providing an extended luminance range, an improved color implementation and enabling a method for an easy transformation into another color space having luminance as a component has been achieved. Key of the invention is the addition of white pixels to red, green and blue pixels. These white pixels have either an extended dynamic rang as described by U.S. patent (U.S. Pat. No. 6,441,852 to Levine et al.) or have a larger size than the red, green, or blue pixels used. The output of said white pixels can be directly used for the luminance values Y of the destination color space. Therefore only the color values and have to be calculated from the RGB values, leading to an easier and faster calculation. As an example chosen by the inventor the conversion to YCbCr color space has been shown in detail.

The present invention relates to a convergent parameter instrument and method for performing real-time imaging using multiple imaging techniques. More particularly, the present invention relates to a handheld convergent parameter instrument providing some or preferably all of real-time imaging, including surface mapping, color imaging, perfusion imaging, thermal imaging, and near infrared spectroscopy, and including a common control set and a common display.

A transmittance overcoat with effectively planar top surface and specified optical and materials properties is applied above a microlens layer to extend the focal length and enhance the performance of long focal length microlenses for semiconductor array color imaging devices. The geometrical optics design factors and microelectric fabrication sequence to achieve optimized long focal length microlens performance are disclosed. The principal advantages of the adaptive process taught in the present invention is shown to enable real-time compensation adjustments for process and material variations. The overcoat process enables simplified single-layer integrated microlens optics for low-cost, high volume manufacturing of CMOS and CCD color video cameras.

Methods and systems are provided for performing a biometric function. A purported skin site of an individual is illuminated with white light. Light scattered from the purported skin site is received with a color imager on which the received light is incident. Spatially distributed images of the purported skin site are derived and correspond to different volumes of illuminated tissue of the individual. The images are analyzed to perform the biometric function.

An optical scanning apparatus is disclosed that includes a light source unit having plural main light sources that are two-dimensionally arranged in the main scanning direction and the sub scanning direction, and plural sub light sources that are arranged between rows of the main light sources aligned in the main scanning direction. The optical scanning apparatus also includes an optical system configured to scan light emitted from the light source unit on a scanning object to form an image on the scanning object, and a control apparatus configured to adjust a main scanning direction image position by controlling two of the main light sources that are juxtaposed to each other with respect to the main scanning direction and adjust a sub scanning direction image position by controlling a main light source and a sub light source that are adjacent to each other.

A method for determining visual calorimetric values for an object having particular spectral reflectance characteristics comprises the steps of: (a) photographing an object with an electronic image capture device to form device image values; (b) selecting a transform from a plurality of transforms for converting device image values to visual colorimetric values, wherein the selection of the transform is based on the particular spectral reflectance characteristics of the object; and (c) applying the selected transform to the device image values to determine the visual colorimetric values for the object.

A specific object such as a human body can be visualized in a wide range in a relation to its background night and day to definitely identify a location of the object in relation to the background as well in the infrared image captured by the infrared camera. The present invention provides an imaging device including a color camera unit for making color imaging with the imaging direction being sequentially adjusted for each of unit images forming together a panoramic image, an infrared camera for imaging by infrared radiation measurement with the imaging direction being sequentially adjusted for each of unit images forming together a panoramic infrared image, a server for storing/managing a panoramic color image produced by overlaying a plurality of unit images captured in colors by the color camera unit one on the other and a panoramic infrared image produced by overlaying a plurality of unit images captured by infrared radiation measurement by the infrared camera one on the other, an image synthesizer for overlaying, on an image of an object imaged by controlling the direction of imaging by the infrared camera to a desired one in a range of the imaging, a color image corresponding to a location, where the object has been imaged by the infrared camera, in a panoramic color image stored/managed in the server, and an image display for displaying an image produced by the overlaying by the image synthesizer.

To eliminate an amplitude difference between luminance signals from pixels included in horizontal lines of color filters, caused by a sensitivity difference from one photosensor to another in a CCD, and reduce a horizontal stripe-like noise appearing in a monitoring image and captured image, there is provided an arithmetic circuit to calculate an amplitude difference in Gr and Gb signals based on an output from a four-channel detector to set gains multiplied by compensation factors, respectively, with which the white balance-processed Gr and Gb signals are equal in amplitude to each other, thereby controlling the gain of a while balance amplifier.

An optical code or other data reading device includes a color image sensor array positioned to sense light reflected from an object, and to produce image data. In one configuration, the color image sensor array has multiple sets (e.g., first and second sets) of sensor elements that are sensitive to corresponding visible wavelength bands of light (e.g., first and second wavelength bands), the sets also being sensitive to light within an infrared wavelength band. An artificial illumination source is positioned to illuminate the field of view with light that is reflected off an object in the field of view toward the image sensor array, the illumination source being operable to produce infrared light having wavelengths within the infrared wavelength band so that, upon illumination, at least some sensor elements of each of the sets are sensitive to the infrared light and contribute to production of the image data.

Increasing the resolution of digital imagers is disclosed by sampling an image using diagonally oriented color sub-pixel arrays, and creating missing pixels from the sampled image data. A first method maps the diagonal color imager pixels to every other orthogonal display pixel. The missing display pixels can be computed by interpolating data from adjacent color imager pixels, and averaging color information from neighboring display pixels. This averaging can be done either by weighting the surrounding pixels equally, or by applying weights to the surrounding pixels based on intensity information. A second method utilizes the captured color imager sub-pixel data instead of interpolation. Missing color pixels for orthogonal displays can be obtained directly from the sub-pixel arrays formed between the row color pixels in the imager.

An indoor surveying apparatus comprises a light source, a color imaging system, a memory storing calibration coefficients, and a computing device for determining coordinates of 3D intersection points of the emitted light with objects using calibration coefficients and images captured by the imaging system. A method of using the surveying apparatus comprises the steps of capturing first image of a scene illuminated by the light source, capturing second image of the scene without the illumination by the light source, comparing the two images to identify locations of the 3D intersection points in the first image, using the set of calibration coefficients and the locations of the 3D intersection points in the first image to compute 3D coordinates of the intersection points, whereby surveying information collected by the apparatus comprises the coordinates of 3D intersection points and the color photographic images captured from known poses relative to the 3D intersection points.

An electro-optic color imaging system includes an optical subsystem, a detector subsystem and a digital image processing subsystem. The system is used to image a color-correlated object. In the optical subsystem, the image surfaces for different color channels of the object are substantially separated. Thus, one color channel may be in focus while others are out of focus. The detector subsystem is located at a fixed image distance from the optical subsystem and captures the different color channel images of the object. The image processing subsystem estimates the image of the object by combining the captured color channel images based at least in part on an a priori estimate of the correlation between the color channels.

A full-color image forming apparatus, in which an image formed by plural electrophotographic processing portions arranged along a conveying belt is superposedly transferred in order onto a recording medium conveyed by the conveying belt, and thereby the color image is obtained on the recording medium, is capable of obtaining high-quality output and suppressing the positional displacement of the respective colors. When the adjustment of the positioning is performed between the n (n>=2) colors, the calculation and the compensation of the positional displacement is performed such that the displacement amount of the respective n colors falls in the area within (n-1).R/n by use of the CPU 121.

A color imaging apparatus includes a CCD imaging device having interline transfer charge transfer paths adapted for interlaced reading and a Bayer-arranged color filter. The apparatus can be put in either of normal shooting mode and high-sensitivity shooting mode. In the high-sensitivity mode, pixel signals from two pixels arranged in the vertical direction in each photosensitive CCD array are transferred by a corresponding vertical transfer path at two times the rate in the normal mode to a horizontal transfer path where they are added together. A line of pixel signals from the horizontal transfer path is output to a preprocess circuit where pixel signals separated by one pixel in the horizontal direction are added together. This process produces a line of image signal.

A semiconductor image sensor utilizing a metal mesh filter to transmit light of a specific wavelength to a photoconversion device, and method of making said image sensor. Semiconductor image sensor pixel cells using varied metal mesh filters may be arranged in a Bayer pattern for color imaging. As a result, the need for using conventional polymer color filters in image sensor applications is eliminated.