Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Hiroshi Akagi

Yoshihiro Kitamura

Yasuhisa Nakamura

Masashi Hirosawa

Kazuyuki Nako

Mitsuaki Nakamura

Hiroyuki Katata

Yoji Noguchi

Mituaki Nakamura

Shiro Ida

In connection with the detection of an amount of movement of an image such as a document image having a small gradient of brightness, it has been difficult to detect the amount by a representative point method, and a block matching method requires much time. An image (F ) at a time (T ), which has been imaged by moving an imaging section ( ), is taken into a memory ( ) and a feature point extracting section ( ), where feature points of the image (F ) are extracted, and an image (F ) at a start time (T ) of the subsequent frame is taken in the memory ( ) and the feature point extracting section ( ). A correlation operating section ( ) operates feature points of the image (F ) and the image (F ) in an area designated by a search area deciding section ( ) to output an amount of movement.

Movement detecting apparatus with feature point extractor based on luminance gradient in current frame

In the case where an image of a document or the like is taken by an economical camera in a TV conference system and the image is transmitted and received through a communication line, when an image of the whole of the document is taken, small characters are defaced and illegible, and, when an imaging operation is performed with a resolution at which characters are readable, it is impossible to take an image of the whole of the document. An image F at time T which is taken while moving an imaging section is captured into an image storing section and a feature point extracting section. The feature point extracting section extracts feature points of the image F . An image F at time T when the subsequent frame is started is captured into the image storing section and the feature point extracting section. The image F in a region designated by a search range determining section, and the feature points of the image F are subject to a calculation in a correlation calculating section, to obtain a motion amount, and then a high-resolution image is synthesized.

Image synthesis and communication apparatus

A one-dimensional image synthesizing unit,images an subject, and produces a plurality of image-to-be-combined signals expressing images-to-be-combined having overlapped regions. A central processing unit,first obtains matching of images of the subject for each of adjacent images-to-be-combined for all image-to-be-combined signals by center and large block matching processes, and detects the deviations of overlapped regions from the obtained matching. Next, in a small block matching process, on the basis of the deviations of the overlapped regions, a plurality of reference blocks and search regions are made to correspond to each other and are set in the respective overlapped regions, and the deviations of the images of the subject are detected in a unit of each search region in more detail than the deviations detected by the large block matching process. Finally, each of the images-to-be-combined is partially geometrically deformed so as to cancel the deviation of the image of the subject, the reference block and the search block are made coincident with each other, and all image-to-be-combined signals are combined to superimpose the respective images-to-be-combined, so that combined image signals are obtained.

Image synthesizing device and method

A picture processing apparatus which can reduce matching errors and shorten a processing time for matching. In the picture processing apparatus, a binarization circuit individually binarizes a pair of object picture signals to generate line picture signals. A feature point extract circuit extracts a plurality of feature point pixels for each reference area in the reference side line picture. A transforming circuit widens a line width of the search side line picture. A correlation computation circuit, for each reference area, finds a correlation between each pixel within a search area in the line picture whose line width has been widened and the feature point pixels. A composition processing section composites the pair of object picture signals based on the correlations. A picture processing apparatus which can adjust density and color tone of two pictures to be composited. At first, the picture processing apparatus finds overlapping areas of the two pictures to be processed and finds typical values typifying distributions of density values of pixels in the overlapping area of each picture, respectively. Next, it adjusts overall lightness of the two pictures by multiplying the density value of each pixel of one picture by a ratio of the typical value of the other picture to the typical value of one picture.

Picture processing apparatus

In forming a panoramic picture image by compositing picture images dividedly imaged, the invention corrects deviations of images of an object at overlap regions caused by a difference in fields of view of imaging means or movement of an object to be imaged in which a picture image forming apparatus includes a picture image inputting device, a frame memory for storing divided picture images inputted from the picture image inputting device, a picture image position calculating unit for calculating positions of compositing the divided picture images, a picture image parallax sampling and processing unit for sampling parallax information among picture images from picture images including parallaxes in the overlap regions among contiguous divided picture images, an intermediate picture image forming and processing unit for forming a plurality of intermediate picture images from the picture images including the parallaxes and a picture image composition and processing unit for compositing a panoramic picture image from the divided picture images where the deviations of images in the overlap regions are corrected by the picture image parallax sampling and processing unit and the panoramic picture images are composited performing an interpolation by the intermediate picture images formed by the intermediate picture image forming and processing unit.

Picture image forming apparatus

In a still-image camera for taking a plurality of still-images of divisions of an object area and synthesizing the still images to obtain a highly fine image, an improvement is made to realize reduction in memory capacity and in processing time for image synthesizing, thus assuring real-time image processing at a reduced cost. The still-image camera includes an image input portion for picking-up a plurality of still-pictures of divisions of an object area, a divided image compressing portion for generating compressed divided-area images by compressing the divided still-images input from the image input portion, and a synthesizing information extracting portion for extracting information necessary for image synthesizing from the divided-area images input from the image input portion before compression. The still image camera further includes a compressed divided-image storage for storing therein compressed divided-area images and a compressed divided-image synthesizing portion for synthesizing compressed divided-area images stored in the compressed divided-image storage to a compressed entire-area image according to the synthesizing information extracted from the divided-area images by the synthesizing information extracting portion.

Still-image taking camera

A bit allocation method which facilitate control of the number of bits to be assigned to transform coefficients and block of image data with a deviation from the functional form. An image coding system which can implement an optimal bit allocation that minimizes quantization error under a predetermined information content or amount, in carrying out bit allocations of block-adaptive type and transform coefficient-adaptive type.

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Nara, Japan

Hiroshi Akagi