British Telecommunications Public Limited Company

British Telecommunications Corporation

David J Chatting

Jeremy M Thorne

David G Morrison

Charles Nightingale

Victoria L Milner

Adam Shadbolt

A method of providing an image for display comprises: determining a target image size in terms of first and second dimensions; processing an input image to detect a region of interest therein, the region of interest having first and second dimensions; and providing an image for display by modifying the input image having regard to the first and second dimensions of the target image size and the first and second dimensions of the region of interest in the input image. Also disclosed is corresponding apparatus and a corresponding computer program.

Providing an image for display

The invention provides a method and system wherein first video images are directly overlaid with remote video images to produce a combined video image which is then displayed to the user and/or stored as appropriate. Preferably at least one of the first and/or remote images is subject to an image processing operation prior to the overlay operation being performed, the image processing operation being such that the scenes contained within the images to be overlaid when processed are separably distinguishable to a user within the combined video image when viewed by the user. The overlay operation is performed such that the scenes contained within the respective video images are substantially in alignment on top of each other. By overlaying the respective first and remote video images as described a single image is obtained within which the respective scenes of the respective first and remote images are still separably distinguishable, but which is still of an appropriate size for display on a screen of limited size without occlusion of one or other of the images.

System and method for combining local and remote images such that images of participants appear overlaid on another in substanial alignment

Caricatured images of subjects are generated wherein the caricatured image of each subject is adapted when subjects join and leave a closed group of which they are members. By adapting the caricatured images in this manner, it can be ensured that each caricatured image remains maximally distinguishable from the other images in the group, thus ensuring that recognition of the images may be maintained at a high level.

Adaptive closed group caricaturing

Increased recognizance of caricatured images is provided for the level of caricaturing to be applied to an image to be set in dependence on the intended size of the caricature image. Preferably, the caricature level is set as a generally inverse function of the image size, such that the smaller the image the greater the level of the caricaturing that is applied. In such a case increased recognizance of subjects represented in smaller images may result.

Image-size dependent facial caricaturing

An image recognition process applied to a photograph is preceded by a pre-processing step which identifies parts of the image which are in focus. The recognition process is then limited to those parts. The pre-processing typically operates by creating a measure of high spatial frequency activity and applying a threshold to them.

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Ipswich, United Kingdom

David J Chatting