Real-Time Dehazing for Endoscopic Images via Downscaling

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional endoscopes face image blurriness due to smoke or haze during surgical procedures, which obscures the surgical site and delays the procedure, highlighting the need for effective haze reduction in real-time imaging.

Innovation Solution

A method and system for haze reduction in images, involving downscaling, processing to generate dehazing parameters, and converting these parameters back to the original resolution for dehazing, using techniques like super sampling, bicubic, and nearest neighbor downscaling, along with atmospheric light component estimation and dark channel matrix determination.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If real-time dehazing processing is performed on full-resolution images, then image clarity is improved, but processing time and computational complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveimage clarityVSAvoidprocessing time

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The processing is divided into two stages: first processing a downsampled version of the image to obtain initial dehazing parameters, then applying these parameters to the full-resolution image. This segmentation allows the computationally intensive parameter estimation to be performed on smaller data while maintaining effectiveness on the original image.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces direct pixel-level processing with a parameter-based approach. Instead of processing each pixel of the full-resolution image individually, the system estimates atmospheric light and transmission maps from downsampled images, then applies these parameters to achieve dehazing efficiently.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Productivity

If dehazing parameters are estimated from downsampled images, then processing speed is improved, but parameter accuracy may deteriorate

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveprocessing speedVSAvoidparameter accuracy

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSMeasurement precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent changes the scale parameter of the image (from full resolution to downsampled resolution) to facilitate faster processing. By adjusting this parameter, the system achieves a balance between processing speed and parameter estimation accuracy, then applies the resulting parameters to the original full-resolution image.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

3Measurement precision

If conventional dehazing methods are used on full-resolution images, then image quality is improved, but computational complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveimage qualityVSAvoidcomputational complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary processing on downsampled images to estimate atmospheric light and transmission maps before applying these parameters to the full-resolution image. This preliminary action on reduced-data images reduces computational complexity while maintaining the quality of the final dehazed image.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS20220351339A1Systems and methods for real-time de-hazing in images

Publication Date: 2022.11.03 COVIDIEN LP

AI summary

Systems and methods for haze reduction in images are disclosed. An exemplary method for haze reduction includes accessing an image of an object obscured by haze where the image has an original resolution, downscaling the image to provide a downscaled image having a lower resolution than the original resolution, processing the downscaled image to generate dehazing parameters corresponding to the lower resolution, converting the dehazing parameters corresponding to the lower resolution to second dehazing parameters corresponding to the original resolution, and dehazing the image based on the second dehazing parameters corresponding to the original resolution.