Digital Imaging Booth for User Integration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for creating personalized portraits and videos are limited by the need for camera loading, film processing, lighting challenges, limited image choices, awkward video recording experiences, and the requirement for costly equipment to integrate user images into video games, resulting in amateurish products and high costs, making mass marketing difficult.
Innovation Solution
A novel apparatus and method that captures a user's image for a short period and integrates it into various background options, allowing selection of realistic or illustrated backgrounds, enabling the creation of souvenir still images or video clips without physical presence at the location, using chromakey or video window technology, and allowing customization of video games with age and gender-appropriate generic bodies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If traditional camera and film processing methods are used to create personalized portraits, then the user can obtain a photograph with their image superimposed against a backdrop, but the process requires camera loading and film processing which is time-consuming and lacks preview capability
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical film-based camera system with a digital imaging system using a digital camera, display screen, and computer processing. This substitution eliminates film loading and processing steps, allowing immediate digital capture, display, and editing of images, thereby resolving the contradiction between time consumption and operational ease.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates digital copies of the user's image that can be immediately displayed on a screen for preview and editing before final output. This copying capability allows users to review and modify their portraits without waiting for film processing, eliminating the time delay and enabling easy edits.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the user selects from a series of still images, then the process is simple, but the choices are limited and lack versatility
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal digital imaging system that can handle multiple image types (still images, video frames), various background options (photographs, illustrations, computer-generated images), and different output formats. This multi-functional approach provides extensive versatility in background choices and image integration methods without proportionally increasing system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides automated image processing and integration capabilities that simplify the complexity for the user. The computer automatically handles image capture, processing, and composition with the selected backgrounds, reducing the operational complexity the user must manage while providing extensive versatility in options.
3Reliability
If the user stands in a booth for video recording, then a video can be captured, but the user feels awkward and bored resulting in an amateurish product
Solution Approach 1:
The patent allows dynamic selection of video sources including pre-recorded video clips and computer-generated animated sequences. Users can choose from diverse video backgrounds (tourist attractions, fictional scenes, video game sequences) that make the experience more engaging and less awkward, thereby improving product quality while maintaining user comfort.
Solution Approach 2:
The system allows users to preview video backgrounds and make selections before the final composition is created. This preliminary viewing and selection process enables users to choose appealing video scenarios that will make them feel more comfortable and engaged, rather than being forced into an awkward recording situation.
4Manufacturing precision
If costly equipment is used to integrate user images into video games, then the integration can be achieved, but the high cost places the product outside the realm of mass marketing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a computer-based digital imaging system that uses inexpensive, readily available components (digital camera, display screen, standard computer with image processing software) to achieve professional-quality image integration. This replaces costly specialized equipment with more affordable consumer-grade technology, enabling mass marketing while maintaining manufacturing precision through software-based processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces expensive mechanical or specialized video processing equipment with software-based image processing on a standard computer. This substitution dramatically reduces equipment costs while maintaining or improving integration quality through programmable algorithms, making the product viable for mass market distribution.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables the creation of customized souvenir images and video games with user integration into diverse backgrounds and scenarios, providing a more appealing and professional product without the need for costly equipment, allowing for mass marketing and user interaction in video games.
Implementation Method 1
a camera which is manually directed to find the eye level of a user and the chin level or top of the head level
Implementation Method 2
using chromakey or video window technology
Implementation Method 3
The imaging board combines the image with the stored image
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus and method for electronically creating combined digital images of a person and incorporating them into a series of site-specific background images or film clips making it appear as if the user were actually a part of the original imaging sequence. As to housing, camera, processor, output devices, control boards, cables, currency machine; see Pat. No. 6,507, 361. In one embodiment the camera can move to take the images from different angles and in an alternative embodiment there are multiple cameras situated such that they sequentially capture and store a series of images to be incorporated into the product. An alternative housing apparatus is in a booth for automatically producing an imaging sequence of a self-portrait of the user integrated into a stored background or film clip, including a cash or credit card receiving device, a computer triggered by cash or credit received in the device, a movable digital camera or video camera to view the user, a video monitor for self viewing, and the possibility of one located outside the booth for advertising or amusement purposes. A series of stored digital imaging movie clips for selective withdrawal by the user where the captured sequence of the user is automatically integrated into stock stored movie clips and can be either output in an e-mail message posted to a board with a link to user's choice of e-mail friends' addresses for retrieval or a direct link to friend's and family's e-mail addresses or an output device with hard copy of personalized sequence to CD ROM or Video or hard copy print of a still image.