1202 results about "Motion estimate" patented technology

The present invention provides a system (method and apparatus) for creating photorealistic 3D models of environments and/or objects from a plurality of stereo images obtained from a mobile stereo camera and optional monocular cameras. The cameras may be handheld, mounted on a mobile platform, manipulator or a positioning device. The system automatically detects and tracks features in image sequences and self-references the stereo camera in 6 degrees of freedom by matching the features to a database to track the camera motion, while building the database simultaneously. A motion estimate may be also provided from external sensors and fused with the motion computed from the images. Individual stereo pairs are processed to compute dense 3D data representing the scene and are transformed, using the estimated camera motion, into a common reference and fused together. The resulting 3D data is represented as point clouds, surfaces, or volumes. The present invention also provides a system (method and apparatus) for enhancing 3D models of environments or objects by registering information from additional sensors to improve model fidelity or to augment it with supplementary information by using a light pattern projector. The present invention also provides a system (method and apparatus) for generating photo-realistic 3D models of underground environments such as tunnels, mines, voids and caves, including automatic registration of the 3D models with pre-existing underground maps.

Method for computer-aided motion estimation in a plurality of temporally successive digital images. The method includes first partial motion estimating in a second digital image relative to a first digital image temporally preceding the second digital image; constructing a reference image structure from the first digital image and the second digital image based on the first partial motion estimation, the reference image structure containing at least features from the first digital image and/or the second digital image; second partial motion estimating in a third digital image, which temporally succeeds the second digital image, relative to the second digital image; third partial motion estimating with a comparison of features of the third digital image and of the features contained in the reference image structure; and determining motion in the third digital image relative to the first digital image based on the third partial motion estimation, the second partial motion estimation and the first partial motion estimation.

A plurality of projection images are acquired over an angular range during the slow rotation of a C-arm gantry having a source and detector. Phase-specific reconstructions are generated from the plurality of projections, wherein each phase-specific reconstruction is generated generally from projections acquired at or near the respective phase. In one embodiment, a plurality of motion estimates are generated based upon the phase-specific reconstructions. One or more motion-corrected reconstructions may be generated using the respective motion estimates and projections. The motion-corrected reconstructions may be associated to form motion-corrected volume renderings.

A system and method for determining and correcting for imaging device motion during an exposure is provided. According to various embodiments of the present invention, multiple sets of image pixels are defined on an image sensor, where each set of pixels is at least partially contained in the output image area of the image sensor. Signals from each set of image pixels are read out once or more during an exposure, motion estimates are computed using signal readouts from one or more sets of image pixels, and signal readouts from one or more sets of the image pixels are processed to form the final output image.

An interlace-to-progressive scan conversion system comprises: a spatial line averaging prefilter; a motion estimator; a three-stage adaptive recursive filter. The motion estimator comprises: a 3-D recursive search sub-component having a bilinear interpolator; a motion correction sub-component having an error-function including penalties related to the difference between a given candidate vector and a plurality of neighboring vectors; a block erosion sub-component. The motion estimator assumes that motion is constant between fields. The three-stage adaptive recursive filter comprises: a first stage that selects between using static pixels data and moving pixels data from a next field; a second stage that selects a more valid set of data between motion compensated data from a previous field and the pixels selected by the first stage; a third stage that combines an intra-field interpolation with the more valid set of data selected by the second stage.

A genus of motion estimation processes is disclosed which is characterized by the following characteristics which all species in the genus will share 1) a process within this genus does not perform the motion estimation separately for each of the partitions and subpartitions defined in the H.264 standard; 2) a process within the genus computes for each motion vector in the search region the partial costs for all macroblock partitions and sub-partitions, compares them to the best partial costs found so far, and for partitions and sub-partitions having lower costs updates the corresponding best partial costs and records the current motion vectors as the one realizing them. 3) a process within the genus after finishing scanning the motion vectors in the search region, computes from the best partial costs the total costs for all possible macroblock partitioning modes and selects the one with the lowest total cost as the best macroblock partitioning mode, with the best motion vectors corresponding to each of the selected macroblock partitions and sub-partitions.

A system for estimating orientation of a target based on real-time video data uses depth data included in the video to determine the estimated orientation. The system includes a time-of-flight camera capable of depth sensing within a depth window. The camera outputs hybrid image data (color and depth). Segmentation is performed to determine the location of the target within the image. Tracking is used to follow the target location from frame to frame. During a training mode, a target-specific training image set is collected with a corresponding orientation associated with each frame. During an estimation mode, a classifier compares new images with the stored training set to determine an estimated orientation. A motion estimation approach uses an accumulated rotation/translation parameter calculation based on optical flow and depth constrains. The parameters are reset to a reference value each time the image corresponds to a dominant orientation.

Dense range data obtained at real-time rates is employed to estimate the pose of an articulated figure. In one approach, the range data is used in combination with a model of connected patches. Each patch is the planar convex hull of two circles, and a recursive procedure is carried out to determine an estimate of pose which most closely correlates to the range data. In another aspect of the invention, the dense range data is used in conjunction with image intensity information to improve pose tracking performance. The range information is used to determine the shape of an object, rather than assume a generic model or estimate structure from motion. In this aspect of the invention, a depth constraint equation, which is a counterpart to the classic brightness change constraint equation, is employed. Both constraints are used to jointly solve for motion estimates.

A method for tracking one or multiple objects from an input video sequence allows a user to select one or more regions that contain the object(s) of interest in the first and the last frame of their choice. An initialization component selects the current and the search frame and divides the selected region into equal sized macroblocks. An edge detection component computes the gradient of the current frame for each macroblock and a threshold component decides then which of the macroblocks contain sufficient information for tracking the desired object. A motion estimation component computes for each macroblock in the current frame its position in the search frame. The motion estimation component utilizes a search component that executes a novel search algorithm to find the best match. The mean absolute difference between two macroblocks is used as the matching criterion. The motion estimation component returns the estimated displacement vector for each block. An output component collects the motion vectors of all the predicted blocks and calculates the new position of the object in the next frame.

Provided are a method and device for motion estimation and compensation to be performed on a panorama image. The motion estimation and compensation are performed on a panorama image with a 360° omni-directional view based on that the spatial relation between left and right borders of the panorama image is very high. Accordingly, it is possible to improve image quality through effective and precise estimation and compensation for the motion of a panorama image. In particular, it is possible to improve the image quality at the right and left edges of the panorama image.

An improved treadmill control system which adjusts the speed of a moving tread belt to follow user motions. Equipment includes a tread base supporting a moving tread belt upon which a user can run or walk, a motor assembly and motor driver to move the tread belt, a plurality of foot sensors, a tread belt motion sensor, a measurement system to estimate user motion based on foot and tread belt sensor signals, and a motor controller to adjust motor assembly speed based on estimates of user motion. The system is capable of making improved user motion estimates and of using them to provide improved belt speed control. In one embodiment, user position, speed, and acceleration are estimated at each user footfall while estimates are continually revised between footfalls. In one embodiment, foot sensors are capacitive proximity sensors which are effective, fully concealable, and economical.

Method, systems and software are proposed for obtaining for blocks of a first image similar blocks of a second image (the “reference image”). The blocks of the first image are processed sequentially, for each block trying out a number of candidate locations in the second image and evaluating a cost function for each. Each candidate location in the second image is displaced by a respective motion vector from the block of the first image. In a first aspect of the invention the cost function is a function of a predicted motion vector for future blocks of the first image (i.e. blocks of the first image which have not yet been processed). In a second aspect of the invention the motion vectors are given by location values which are not all whole pixel spacings, halves of the pixel spacing, or quarters of the pixel spacing.

An imaging device, comprising: an image pickup device which images a subject; and a motion estimating device which estimates a motion of the subject and a motion of the imaging device based on a dynamic image or a plurality of still images which are imaged to include the subject prior to actual imaging of a still image of the subject by the image pickup device.

A camera that provides for a panorama mode of operation that employs internal software and internal acceleration hardware to stitch together two or more captured images to create a single panorama image with a wide format. Captured images are projected from rectilinear coordinates into cylindrical coordinates with the aid of image interpolation acceleration hardware. Matches are quickly determined between each pair of images with a block based search that employs motion estimation acceleration hardware. Transformation are found, utilizing regression and robust statistics techniques, to align the captured images with each other, which are applied to the images using the interpolation acceleration hardware. A determination is made for an optimal seam to stitch images together in the overlap region by finding a path which cuts through relatively non-noticeable regions so that the images can be stitched together into a single image with a wide panoramic effect.

A method for estimating the motion between a first image and a second image in a system for creating a panoramic image from a plurality of images taken by a camera, the method comprising the steps of: downsampling a first image in a first direction and in a second direction; downsampling a second image in a first direction and in a second direction; filtering the first and the second image so as to filter out any global illumination changes between the first image and the second image; calculating a first displacement along the first direction between the first downsampled image along the first direction and the second downsampled image along the first direction; and calculating a second displacement along the second direction between the first downsampled image along the second direction and the second downsampled image along the second direction. In an alternate embodiment, a device and computer readable medium corresponding to the above method is described.

A motion estimation algorithm finds the best match for a given block or macroblock so that the resulting error signal has very low energy level which is computed, for e.g., by the SAD method. The motion estimation algorithm also provides for an optional sub-pixel level estimation and an inter4v search, and allows for restricting the number of searches for a Frame-frame ME (motion estimation) using Top-Top and Bottom-Bottom field MEs. The algorithm provides for a selective early exit and enables selecting a suitable search area with N candidate points (4 to 8) for starting the search. The search is conducted progressively till a minimum error signal (low energy level signal) is reached. The candidate points for search may be in a diamond shaped configuration, and there may be a plurality of successive diamond configurations, the number of which is configurable. The invention has application in MPEG-4 and H.264 standards.

A method, a circuit arrangement and a display device which suppresses motion blur due to motion integration carried out along a motion trajectory on the image data, which occurs in matrix type displays in which a motion trajectory is integrated by the viewer and/or the display, includes an inverse integration filtering of the video signal. To avoid de-blurring in image regions where motion cannot be detected, or image is low and to avoid noise modulation, motion estimation as well as further image characteristic are used.

A video coding method for surveillance videos allowing some regions of the scene to be encoded in an almost lossless manner. Such Regions of Interest (RoI) can be determined a priori or they can be automatically determined in real-time by an intelligent system. The user can set high priority in such regions a priori or the intelligent video analysis algorithm can automatically assign some windows a higher priority compared to the rest of the video. In a preferred embodiment, this can be achieved by canceling the motion estimation and compensation operations, and then decreasing the size of the quantization levels during the encoding process in the RoI. The present inventions can produce MPEG compatible bit-streams without sending any side information specifying the RoI.

Methods systems and computer readable media are provided for extracting information pertaining to at least one moving target. A set of signal data are inputted to a principal components processor, wherein the set of signal data comprise signal data corresponding to at least one waveform acquired from the at least one moving target. A complex representation of the set of signal data is formed and, using a principal components processor, at least one complex principal component of the complex representation is calculated. At least one of the calculated complex principal components is automatically selected and each of the at least one automatically selected complex principal component is applied to extract information about the at least one moving target. Methods systems and computer readable media are provided extracting information pertaining to at least one moving target. A set of signal data comprising signal data corresponding to at least one waveform acquired from the at least one moving target are inputted to a principal components processor. A complex representation of the set of signal data is formed, and at least one complex principal component of the complex representation is calculated. An estimated value of a physical characteristic of the at least one moving, target is then calculated, using a phase of at least one of the at least one complex principal components.

The present invention relates to systems and methods for compressing, decompressing, and transmitting video data. The systems and methods include pixel by pixel motion estimation and compensation and efficient quantization of residual errors. The present invention applies block estimation of the residual error produced by motion compensation. The block estimation is applied by a local decoder to generate synthesized blocks of video data. The block estimation approximated uses a set of predetermined motion estimation errors that are stored as error vectors in a codebook. The codebook is included in an encoder of the present invention and converts an error vector for each block to an error vector index. The error vector index, which introduces minimal transmission burden, is then sent from the encoder to a target decoder. A receiving decoder also includes a copy of the codebook and converts the error vector index to its associated error vector for reconstruction of video data.