Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Canon Information Systems Research Australia Pty. Ltd.

Alison Joan Lennon

Jing Wu

Delphine Anh Dao Le

Sue-Ken Yap

Ernest Yiu Cheong Wan

Sammy Chan

Khanh Phi Van Doan

Mathieu Hitter

Edwin Ho

Julie Rae Kowald

Andrew Peter Bradley

Lena Qian

Nicole Ai Ling Lam

Daniel John Lloyd-Jones

Joshua Brendon Worrill

Nicolas Rowland Bingham

Michael Peter Anderson

Timothy Charles Edgoose

Peter Kirkland Thomson

A method and apparatus are described for forming a structure on a substrate. The structure may be a circuit element. The method uses a digital specificationfor forming the structure, including specifications for printing and curing. The structure is printed (step) using a drop-on-demand printer, wherein the printing dispenses at least one material on the substrateaccording to the digital specification. The structure is cured (step) by irradiating the dispensed material from one or more electromagnetic radiation sourcesin the printer, wherein curing parameters are specified by the digital specificationto obtain a desired electrical property when the structure is a circuit element. The curing specification may specify the intensity of the irradiation and the location of irradiation points in the print region.

Method of forming structures using drop-on-demand printing

Disclosed is a method of constructing at least one data structure from at least one data source. A representation is constructed of the data source and at least one previous view of the data source. From the representations, at least one compulsory entity (eg. 'branch') is then identified. This may generally be performed by a user selection. The method then constructs the data structure comprising the compulsory entity and one or more context entities, where the context entities are obtained from the representation and context data obtained from the previous view. Typically the data source is hierarchical and the data structure is hierarchical.

Method of constructing preferred views of hierarchical data

A query system () is formed by a wizard () operating to form a data server () arranged to serve data from a data source () to a client application (), each of the wizard, the client application, the data server and the data source being linked by a communications network (). The data source has native data types and data arranged in a data structure. The wizard operates to firstly identify the data source over the network. The wizard further provides an application program for traversing and examining at least one of the data structure and data of the identified data source. The application program is operable to generate a representative schema () comprising mapping data for converting the native data types to predetermined data types of a common data model. The wizard further operates to create a server application () adapted to use the representative schema to convert the data from the native data types to the predetermined data types and to serve the data to the client application according to the common data model over the network. The representative schema and the server application thereby form the data server generated by the wizard. Once formed, the data server may receive and respond to queries from the client application, which may have no knowledge of the native data types, but which are directed to the data source.

Method of generating data servers for heterogeneous data sources

A method of establishing at least one variable of a new view of data, is disclosed where the variable is obtained from at least one data source (-). The method identifies at least one display type (, FIG.), each display type having at least one corresponding template of data to be used by the new view of data. The template includes a plurality of data component slots (-) related according to the semantics of the identified display type. One or more data components to be included in the view of data are then identified, each identified data component being associated () with a slot in the template. A list of recommendations is then formed for one or more unspecified data components of the new view of data, the recommendations being based on the semantics of the display type and the identified data components. Finally at least one data component from the list of recommendations is identified as a variable for said new view of data. Also disclosed is a method of learning unknown relationships among data components across a plurality of heterogeneous data sources, and a method for recommending relevant data components for view creation across a plurality of heterogeneous data sources.

Method of using recommendations to visually create new views of data across heterogeneous sources

Access to heterogeneous data sources may be obtained by interactively determining transformations for use in mapping at least one source data component from at least one data source to a target data component. Selection of at least one the source data component is detected. A corresponding list of representative data examples is generated for each selected source data component. A resulting list of representative data examples is compiled for the target data component from the lists of representative data examples of the selected source data components, the resulting list of data examples being representative of the target data component. A modification of an example is identified from the resulting list of examples representative of the target data component, the example being modified as a single textual entity. At least one transformation is determined, by inferring from the modified example, to be applied to at least one source data component.

Methods for interactively defining transforms and for generating queries by manipulating existing query data

A method of extracting key frames from a video sequence, which video sequence includes MPEG compressed video data having block motion vectors. The method initially partially decompresses () the MPEG compressed video data to obtain block motion vectors and converts () the block motion vectors to forward block motion vectors. The method then generates () global motion signals and generates () dominant global direction clusters. The method then selects () potential key frames of the video sequence using the generated dominant global direction clusters. The method lastly decompresses () the selected key frames to obtain the extracted key frames.

Extracting key frames from a video sequence

A method of browsing electronically-accessible resources using descriptions of the resources. These descriptions have descriptor components, which have attributes representative of at least two axes of access to the resources. These descriptions also have links to the corresponding resources. The method first reads the descriptions and displays a number of items (). Each one of these items are associated with a corresponding descriptor component of the read description that has an attribute. The method allows the browsing () of the descriptions and their corresponding electronically-accessible resources via the links using the displayed items.

Browsing electronically-accessible resources

A system is described in which a media browser (), operating as a software application on a user terminal or preferably a server for a number of users, provides a user with a single user interface that facilitates browsing and searching different metadata collections over the Internet (). A metadata server () is associated with each of the metadata collections. When the metadata server () receives a request from the media browser (), the metadata server () interprets the request and replies with a description that satisfies the request and according to a predetermined scheme. The description contains at least one link which represents a return link which represents a return request to the metadata server (). Specifically disclosed are methods () for recording user location preferences at a service and using one or more lists of such preferences to focus searching responses to statistically desirable material. Monitoring the validity of a bookmarked location is also described.

Method for facilitating access to multimedia content

A method and apparatus for the detection of faces in a digital image captured under a variety of lighting conditions are provided. Rather than subjecting an entire image to computationally intensive face detection analysis, the image is subjected to computationally simply analysis to identify candidate pixels likely to be of skin colour. Only those pixels having such color are subject to computationally intensive face detection analysis. The pixels are selected by first selecting a color distribution model based on an image capture condition provided with the color digial image. Then, the color of the pixels is tested using the distribution model to determine those pixels having predominantly skin color. Preferably, the distribution model is selected from among a number of different distribution models with each of the distribution models associated with a different set of lighting conditions. In this way, a face detection process may accommodate a variety of lighting conditions associated with the capture of an image using a computationally simple analysis.

Face detection in digital images

A method () is disclosed for producing, using a multi-slot presentation skeleton (), an image presentation from a set of source images (). The method comprises establishing a duration of the presentation, an average slot duration, and based upon slot template rules, locations and properties of key slots in the skeleton (). The method then generates () candidate groups of sub-image sets from the set of source images, and selects () sub-image sets from the candidate groups for the key slots. The method then fills () the non-key slots with sub-image sets from the candidate groups, and processes () the sub-image sets in the skeleton slots using effect and transition rules, to thereby form the image presentation.

Method of automatic production of image presentations

A system is described in which a media browser (), operating as a software application on a user terminal or preferably a server for a number of users, provides a user with a single user interface that facilitates browsing and searching different metadata collections over the Internet (). A metadata server () is associated with each of the metadata collections. When the metadata server () receives a request from the media browser (), the metadata server () interprets the request and replies with a description that satisfies the request and according to a predetermined scheme. The description contains at least one link which represents a return link which represents a return request to the metadata server (). Specifically disclosed are methods of forming a table of contents for a particular user preferably based upon media reproduction attributes, methods of right to use and quality of service control, graphical user interfaces for facilitating the browsing process, methods of interpreting metadata, methods of communicating metadata between users, and method for transferring media sessions between users.

Transferring a media browsing session from one device to a second device by transferring a session identifier and a session key to the second device

A method of classifying a digital image is disclosed. The method provides a region adjacency graph () representing the digital image and analyses the region adjacency graph () for predetermined patterns. For each identified pattern a classification of the digital image is selected. The region adjacency graph () is classified as one of a number of stereotypes.

Automated image interpretation and retrieval system

A method of extracting key frames from a video sequence, which video sequence comprises MPEG compressed video data having block motion vectors. The method initially partially decompresses () the MPEG compressed video data to obtain block motion vectors and converts () the block motion vectors to forward block motion vectors. The method then generates () global motion signals and generates () dominant global direction clusters. The method then selects () potential key frames of the video sequence using the generated dominant global direction clusters. The method lastly decompresses () the selected key frames to obtain the extracted key frames.

The method discloses a method of segmenting an image. The method firstly () allocates pixels as seeds in areas of an image as a function of the luminance of the pixels and the size of those areas. The method then grows () regions from said seeds so as to segment the image into a number of regions. The method considers a number of pixels that border the growing regions and the pixel that is most similar in luminance to a region it borders is appended () to that region. The method then updates () the luminance of the appended region. The method continues until there are no more pixels bordering the growing regions. The method then encodes the segmented image (). It does this by splitting () the image into a number of rectangular sub-images in a quadtree manner until each rectangular sub-image comprises a segmented image forming the dominant portion of the sub-image. The method then merges () rectangular sub-images which have a common dominant portion and share a common edge.

Method and apparatus for segmenting images

A method of interpreting an image using a statistical or probabilistic interpretation model is disclosed. The image has associated therewith contextual information. The method comprises the following steps: providing the contextual information associated with the image for analysis; analyzing the additional contextual information to identify predetermined features relating to the image; and biasing the statistical or probabilistic interpretation model in accordance with the identified features.

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Balmain, Australia

Alison Joan Lennon