Silicon Optix Inc.

Qualcomm Incorporated

Synaptics Corporation

Geo Semiconductors Inc.

Louie Lee

Zorawar Singh Bassi

Vladimir Lachine

Gregory Lionel Smith

Gopal Ramachandran

Masoud Vakili

Andrew Zador

Ye-long Chiou

Futoshi Hayashida

Greg Smith

Vadim M Kustov

Frederick Christopher Candler

Tomislav Jasa

Bonaventure Karuta

A liquid crystal display (LCD) system including a liquid crystal (LC) panel; an LC panel controller to send output code values to the LC panel; a backlight to illuminate the LC panel; a backlight controller; and a display controller to control the backlight controller and the LC panel controller, and receive input code values from an image source is presented wherein the LCD system uses a dynamic knee point determination of soft clipping to provide output code values to the LC panel. A method for using an LCD system as above is also provided.

Backlight dimming ratio based dynamic knee point determination of soft clipping

A method and a system for adaptive image enhancement are provided for measuring the image quality of a pixel region in a frame, performing an image classification based on the image quality measurement, and enhancing image quality by applying operations according to image classification of the region. Also provided is a method as above including the steps of dividing a frame into P pixel regions; and for each one of the pixel regions measuring the image quality; assigning an image quality class; and enhancing the image. Also provided is a system for adaptive image enhancement including a circuit to measure the image quality of a pixel region in a frame in a source video image; a circuit to perform an image classification of the region based on the image quality measurement; and a circuit to enhance the image quality of the region in the source video image a by applying operations based on the image classification of the frame.

Method and system for detection and enhancement of video images

A system and method for rapid selection and viewing of video programs in digital video broadcasting are disclosed. In one example of the invention, a parser sorts the data stream from different video programs and the sorted data are then stored in a fast cache memory. There are at least two intra-coded frames per video program available for decoding in the cache memory, constituting at least one group of pictures. Upon selecting a video program, a decoder decodes data starting from the oldest intra-coded frame in the cache memory. Full motion video and accompanying audio of the new video program are therefore available immediately resulting in a seamless and aesthetically pleasing transition between video programs. Multiple decoders are used in other aspects of the invention to provide thumbnail videos of a group of video programs for visual program selection.

Method and system for rapid and smooth selection of digitally compressed video programs

A distortion corrected panoramic vision system and method provides a visually correct composite image acquired through wide angle optics and projected onto a viewing surface. The system uses image acquisition devices to capture a scene up to 360&#xb0; or 4&#x3c0; steradians broad. An image processor corrects for luminance or chrominance non-uniformity and applies a spatial transform to each image frame. The spatial transform is convolved by concatenating the viewing transform, acquisition geometry and optical distortion transform, and display geometry and optical transform. The distortion corrections are applied separately for red, green, and blue components to eliminate lateral color aberrations of the optics. A display system is then used to display the resulting composite image on a display device which is then projected through the projection optics and onto a viewing surface. The resulting image is visibly distortion free and matches the characteristics of the viewing surface.

Panoramic vision system and method

An electronic correction system and method for correcting optical anomalies, namely distortions, color non-convergence (excluding axial chromatic aberration) and luminance (or chrominance) non-uniformity. Each effect is modeled as a transformation in either spatial (positional) space or color space. Representing the effects as transformations of digital pixel data, allows the different anomalies to be resolved within a common framework, namely that of image 'warping'. The anomaly, having been expressed as a pixel transformation, is then eliminated by electronically applying the inverse transformation. This process is equivalent to digitally manipulating or warping the image in position and/or color space and accordingly this can be achieved using commercially known warping circuits. In addition, the transformation can also contain a component to additionally perform any application specific image warping (e.g. scaling and geometric transformations). Finally, by storing a sequence of transformations, adaptive anomaly correction and dynamic effects can be achieved.

System and method for electronic correction of optical anomalies

An edge adaptive system and method for image filtering. The method maps each output pixel onto input image coordinates and then prefilters and resamples the input image pixels around this point to reduce noise and adjust the scale corresponding to a particular operation. Then the edge in the input image is detected based on local and average signal variances in the input pixels. According to the edge detection parameters, including orientation, anisotropy and variance strength, the method determines a footprint and frequency response for the interpolation of the output pixel. In a more particular implementation, the method divides the input pixel space into a finite number of directions called skews, and estimates the edge orientation with the nearest skew direction. This further facilitates pixels inclusion in the interpolation of the output pixel.

Edge adaptive image expansion and enhancement system and method

Dynamic warp map generation system and corresponding method are disclosed. A compactor obtains spatial transformation parameters along with geometric and optical distortion parameters and combines them to form hybrid grid data in a hybrid vector space. This vector space is divided into hybrid blocks. In each hybrid block, the grid dataset is fitted with a hypersurface and the surface coefficients are saved in an interface. A decompactor obtains dynamic control parameters representing varying distortion parameters and generates a hybrid space vector. According to the hybrid space vector, a warp map is decoded from the hypersurface coefficients that compensates for dynamic geometric and optical distortions. In another example of the present invention, the dynamic warp map generation system is used for color gamut transformation.

Dynamic warp map generation system and method

A system and method for correcting distortion in projected images caused by the projection of an input image by a projector lens onto a projection screen having a surface that is not orthogonal to the projection axis of the projector. Projection parameters including the focal length of the projector lens and the angles that represent the pan, tilt and roll angle of the projector are obtained. Then the projected area and the best viewable rectangular area that fits within said projected area is determined. The distortion is then characterized by using a distortion transformation which corresponds to the transformation that exists between the vertices of the best viewable rectangular area and the corresponding vertices of the projected area. Finally, the distortion transformation is inverted and applied to input image to obtain a distortion free projected image.

System and method for correcting multiple axis displacement distortion

A short throw projection system and method for displaying a corrected optical image on a projection screen based on input image data that includes an electronic correction unit, an image projector and a reflection assembly. The electronic correction unit receives the input image data and generates pre-distorted image data. The image projector receives the pre-distorted image data from the electronic correction unit and projects a pre-distorted optical image that corresponds to the pre-distorted image data or a pre-distorted image compensated by the projection optic distortion. The optical reflection assembly is positioned in the optical path of the pre-distorted optical image to project an optical image on the projection screen. The reflection assembly can consist of various combinations of curved and planar mirrors as desired. The electronic correction unit is encoded to pre-distort the geometry of the image represented by the image data such that when the pre-distorted optical image is projected through the image projector and reflected within the reflection assembly, the optical and geometric distortions associated with the image projector and the mirrors within the reflection assembly are eliminated in the displayed optical image.

Short throw projection system and method

An image transformation method for translating a non-linear 2D geometrical transformation into two separable 1D geometrical transformations first determines the inverse of the 2D geometrical transformation to form an inverse 2D geometrical transformation. Then the method converts the inverse 2D geometrical transformation into an analytical inverted 2D geometrical transformation and separates the analytical inverse 2D geometrical transformation into first and second 1D geometrical transformations. The method then represents said inverse 2D geometrical transformation and first and second 1D geometrical transformations as tensor spline surfaces and then compares an evaluation of said first and second 1D geometrical transformations at each pixel with an evaluation of the analytical inverse 2D geometrical transformation at each pixel. If the error evaluation does not meet a predetermined level of performance then the separation and transformation steps are repeated. Since the method involves one-dimensional spatial transform processing it results in reduced calculations, efficient memory access, and ability to process data in a real-time environment. In-addition, since the method provides a compact representation of the spatial transforms, it can be scaled for a particular level of precision.

Method and system for processing a non-linear two dimensional spatial transformation

A method and system for circularly symmetric anisotropic filtering over an extended elliptical or rectangular footprint in single-pass digital image warping are disclosed. The filtering is performed by first finding and adjusting an ellipse that approximates a non-uniform image scaling function in a mapped position of an output pixel in the input image space. A linear transformation from this ellipse to a unit circle in the output image space is determined to calculate input pixel radii inside the footprint and corresponding filter coefficient as a function of the radius. The shape of the footprint is determined as a trade-off between image quality and processing speed. In one implementation, profiles of smoothing and warping components are combined to produce sharper or detail enhanced output image. The method and system of the invention produce natural output image without jagging artifacts, while maintaining or enhancing the sharpness of the input image.

Single-pass image resampling system and method with anisotropic filtering

An image data processing method and system receives image data from a burst memory buffer and provides output image data to a vertical filter for filtering. The method determines whether a new frame of input image data has been received, said frame of data having a plurality of blocks, each block having a plurality of rows and columns. A vertical input buffer uses a read pointer, an oldest unused data pointer, and a write pointer to keep track of the data that is being read and stored. Data is read and stored into said vertical input buffer by determining the minimum offset for the block, reading a row of input image data from the burst memory buffer and skipping the row depending on the minimum offset until minimum offset reached, and storing the row of input image data in said vertical input buffer for processing by the vertical filter until the buffer is full. If the entire frame has been processed then the pointers are all reset. If an entire column in the output image has been processed then the column data is flushed. In another embodiment, a low latency mode is adopted such that it is not necessary for the columns to be completely processed before switching to the next column horizontally.

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Richmond Hill, Canada

Louie Lee