Feedback Lighting Control for Video Communication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Desktop video communication systems often face issues with inadequate lighting, leading to poor video quality due to insufficient or inappropriate lighting, which cannot be effectively corrected post-capture.
Innovation Solution
A feedback control process that automatically adjusts lighting by comparing captured images to stored images and transmitting optimization instructions to integrated or auxiliary lights to match the desired lighting conditions, ensuring suitable illumination before image capture.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If professional video lighting equipment and expertise are used, then video quality is improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically controls lighting conditions through software-based feedback control without requiring professional video expertise. The computer captures images, analyzes lighting quality, and adjusts integrated lights autonomously, eliminating the need for professional lighting equipment and expertise while maintaining good video quality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces complex mechanical lighting equipment with software-based control of integrated lights. Instead of using professional lighting hardware, the system uses image processing algorithms to analyze lighting conditions and control software to adjust the integrated lights, substituting mechanical/optical complexity with computational simplicity
2Manufacturing precision
If software correction is applied to poor lighting, then some video quality issues are improved, but the correction may not be feasible when lighting is sufficiently poor
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary lighting adjustment before image capture by continuously monitoring lighting conditions and pre-adjusting the integrated lights to optimal settings. This feedback control ensures that images are captured under appropriate lighting conditions from the start, eliminating the need for post-capture correction and ensuring reliability even in previously uncorrectable lighting scenarios
3Manufacturing precision
If integrated lights are controlled by feedback process, then lighting optimization is achieved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the lighting control functionality with the existing video communication device by integrating lights into the display unit and using the same processor for both video processing and lighting control. The feedback control process is combined with the existing image capture and processing functions, eliminating the need for separate control hardware and reducing overall device complexity while achieving lighting optimization
Data Source
AI summary
A video communication system may include a computer program that implements a feedback control process for automatically controlling a light. The feedback control process may include receiving an image from a video camera and determining an initial difference between the received image and a stored image. For example, the feedback control process may determine, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, whether the color and intensity of a facial region in the captured image is sufficiently close to the color and intensity of a facial region in the stored image. If the difference between the captured image and the stored image exceeds a threshold, the feedback control process includes transmitting an optimization instruction to the light. This optimization instruction, when performed by the light, decreases the difference between the received image and the stored image.