Image Processing Apparatus for Sensitivity and Resolution Trade-off

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing digital camera technologies face challenges in increasing sensitivity without compromising image resolution, noise removal, and maintaining color reproducibility, as adding pixels or combining pixel values can lead to positional deviations, decreased resolution, and edge blurring.

Innovation Solution

An image processing apparatus that separates image information into luminance and color components, extracts edge information, removes noise from each component using optimized filters based on imaging conditions, and synthesizes the image information to enhance sensitivity while minimizing edge blurring and noise.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If pixels of images are added to increase sensitivity, then sensitivity is improved, but exposure time is increased causing positional deviation when camera or subject moves

Engineering Contradiction:

ImprovesensitivityVSAvoidpositional accuracy

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSManufacturing precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by extracting edge information from the luminance component before noise removal. This pre-extraction of edges ensures that the structural information is captured prior to any processing that might cause positional deviation, allowing the edges to guide the subsequent synthesis process even when multiple images are added together

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the image processing into distinct components: luminance component processing, color component processing, and edge extraction. By separating these functions, the patent can apply different processing strategies to each component, allowing edge information to be preserved while noise is removed from the luminance and color components separately

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

2Reliability

If pixel values of adjacent pixels are added together to increase sensitivity, then sensitivity is improved, but resolution decreases

Engineering Contradiction:

ImprovesensitivityVSAvoidresolution

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSMeasurement precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent transitions to another dimension by extracting edge information from the luminance component and combining it with the color component. This dimensional shift allows the patent to preserve high-frequency spatial information (edges) separately from the color data, effectively maintaining resolution while benefiting from the sensitivity improvement of pixel addition

Inventive Principle:

Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

3Object-affected harmful factors

If a low-pass filter is applied to remove noise according to imaging sensitivity, then noise is removed, but edge blurring occurs

Engineering Contradiction:

ImprovenoiseVSAvoidedge sharpness

Core Design Contradiction:

Object-affected harmful factorsVSManufacturing precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the image into luminance and color components, and further extracts edge information from the luminance component. By separating edges from the luminance component before applying noise removal filters, the patent can apply aggressive noise removal to the remaining luminance data without affecting the preserved edge information

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent uses edge information as an intermediary element. The extracted edges act as a mediator that bridges the gap between noise removal and edge preservation. The edges are extracted, the luminance component is filtered to remove noise, and then the edges are combined back with the filtered luminance and color components to reconstruct the image with both noise removed and edges sharp

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

4Object-affected harmful factors

If sensitivity is set high at a lighted place, then noise is reduced, but blurring process has strong effect causing unnecessary image blurring

Engineering Contradiction:

ImprovenoiseVSAvoidimage sharpness

Core Design Contradiction:

Object-affected harmful factorsVSManufacturing precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies dynamics by adaptively adjusting the processing strength based on local image characteristics. The edge extraction and combination process dynamically identifies regions that require sharpness preservation (edges) versus regions that can tolerate stronger noise removal (non-edge areas), allowing the processing to adapt to local conditions rather than applying uniform blurring across the entire image

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

Data Source

PatentUS8351731B2Image processing apparatus, imaging apparatus, image processing method, and computer program product

Publication Date: 2013.01.08 RICOH CO LTD

AI summary

An image-information obtaining unit obtains image information. An image-component separating unit separates the image information into luminance information and color information. An edge extracting unit extracts edge information from the luminance information. A luminance-noise removing unit removes noise from the luminance information. A color-noise removing unit removes noise from the color information. An image-information synthesizing unit synthesizes image information based on the edge information, the luminance information form which the noise is removed, and the color information from which the noise is removed.