Real-Time Video Overlay Transparency Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for real-time superposition of images from multiple video streams, such as in gunnery training simulators, face challenges in managing transparency while maintaining realistic rendering and low processing latency, often resulting in perceptible delays and shifts due to software-based solutions that require specialized hardware and expertise.
Innovation Solution
A method and device that assign transparency information to color components of each pixel in a video stream, using a digital electronic card with an FPGA unit to decode and merge images in real-time, reducing latency and enabling additional processing like infrared filtering and aesthetic improvements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If software-based video overlay is used to manage transparency between video streams, then transparency management capability is improved, but processing latency increases significantly (greater than 120 ms)
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces software-based transparency management with a hardware-based solution using an electronic card that performs alpha compositing operations in hardware. This substitution of the processing mechanism from software to hardware dramatically reduces processing latency from over 120 ms to below the human perception threshold, while maintaining full transparency management capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the processing parameter from software execution time to hardware processing speed. By implementing alpha compositing in hardware on an electronic card, the processing time parameter is fundamentally altered, achieving real-time performance with latency below human perception thresholds while maintaining transparency management functionality.
2Adaptability or versatility
If software-based video overlay is used to manage transparency, then transparency management is enabled, but device complexity increases (requiring specific dedicated graphics hardware and considerable software expertise)
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the transparency management functionality from complex software applications and dedicates it to a specific hardware component (electronic card with alpha compositing capability). This extraction allows standard processors to handle the transparency management without requiring specialized graphics cards or extensive software expertise, thereby reducing overall system complexity while maintaining the capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The electronic card is designed to autonomously perform alpha compositing operations without requiring complex software control or specialized graphics processing units. The hardware self-services the transparency management function, eliminating the need for dedicated graphics cards and reducing software complexity while maintaining full transparency management capability.
3Loss of time
If software optimization is applied to reduce latency, then latency is reduced to just below perception threshold, but additional processing capability is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements alpha compositing in hardware to achieve processing speeds that far exceed the minimum requirement of being just below the perception threshold. This excessive processing capability provides a time margin that enables additional image processing operations such as aesthetic improvements and resolution enhancement, which would be impossible with software-based optimization alone.
Data Source
AI summary
The device (1) comprises means (7) for assigning, for each pixel of a second image, a part of the three components (red, green, blue) defining the color constituting the pixel, to a component alpha containing an item of information relating to transparency and allowing management thereof, in such a way as to obtain a coded image, and means (2) comprising a digital electronic card (9) which is formed in such a way as to decode said coded image so as to extract the information relating to transparency, and to merge this image thus decoded with a first image, while taking account of said item of information relating to transparency, the image resulting from this merging being displayed by appropriate means (5).