Eastman-kodak Company

Thomas N Berarducci

Kenneth Alan Parulski

John Randall Fredlund

Wayne E Prentice

Jay A Endsley

Alexander C Loui

Joseph Ward

Rajan L Joshi

William M Jackson

William A Cook

Lionel J D'luna

A method of transferring images captured by a digital capture device to a remote memory location over a channel includes capturing a plurality of digital images using the digital capture device and storing the plurality of images in a local memory. The method also includes providing a plurality of user selectable times for the transfer of images over the channel from the local memory to the remote memory location and a user selecting one of the user selectable times, and transferring the plurality of images over the channel to the remote memory location at the user selected time.

Effective transfer of images captured by a digital camera to a remote location

A dual mode digital imaging system has a still processing mode that produces an output image in a first color space and a motion processing mode that produces an output image in a second color space, in particular a first color space that is RGB and a second color space that is YUV. The digital imaging system includes a dual mode digital camera for use with a computer and a processing application for running on the computer, wherein the motion mode processing is relatively less complex than the still mode processing although at least one common control parameter is used to control both modes. The motion mode processing, which is performed using algorithms and software approaches designed to minimize processing time, nonetheless produces an entirely adequate relatively low resolution YUV image appropriate for applications such as videoconferencing. The still mode processing, on the other hand, uses more elaborate algorithms to optimize the image quality of a relatively high resolution RGB output image.

Dual mode digital imaging and camera system

A method for simultaneously recording motion and still images, includes the steps of: capturing a motion image sequence and accompanying audio of a scene with a digital video camera adapted to record both motion and higher resolution still images; simultaneously capturing a still image sequence having a higher resolution and lower frame rate than the motion capture sequence; compressing the motion image sequence using interframe compression and the accompanying audio and storing the compressed motion image and audio data; and compressing the still images using intraframe coding and storing the compressed still image data.

Digital camera for capturing a sequence of full and reduced resolution digital images and storing motion and still digital image data

A method of selecting images from a plurality of images previously stored in a local digital memory, ordering services to be provided utilizing the images, and transferring such images over a channel to a remote digital memory where the services are to be provided includes storing a plurality of images in the local memory location along with corresponding thumbnail images and displaying at least a subset of the thumbnail images for viewing by a user. The user selects those images to be transferred after viewing the displayed thumbnail images and provides image identifiers for each selected image to be uploaded to the remote location and a service order which specifies the services to be provided utilizing such selected images. The remote location confirms the receipt of the service order. The images are transferred over the channel to the remote memory location at a suitable time for effective data transfer whereby the ordered services can be subsequently provided.

Effective transfer of images from a user to a service provider

A digital camera, which captures images and transfers the captured images to a host computer, includes an image sensor exposed to image light for capturing the images and generating image signals; an A/D converter for converting the image signals into digitized image data; a digital interface for transferring the digitized image data to the host computer; means for controlling the image sensor in at least two different camera configurations, each configuration including configuration information defining a plurality of camera parameters; and means for communicating at least part of the configuration information along with the digitized image data to the computer via the digital interface.

Multi-mode digital camera with computer interface using data packets

A digital camera is designed to capture images and transfer the captured images to a host computer. The camera includes an image sensor exposed to image light for capturing the images and generating image signals; a timing generator, incorporating a line request control signal, for controlling the readout of lines of photosites from the image sensor; an A/D converter for converting the image signals into digital image data; a digital memory for storing at least one line of digital image data; and a digital interface for providing the digital image data read from the digital memory to the host computer. By initiating a new line readout in response to the line request control signal indicating the fullness of the digital memory, the camera is able to use the image sensor as an analog frame memory, instead of having a full digital frame memory in the camera, so that only a small line store is required.

Timing control for a digitally interfaced camera using variable line

A resampling application specific integrated circuit (RSA) supports image interpolation or decimation by any arbitrary factor in order to provide flexibility, and utilizes a neighborhood of up to 9.times.9 pixels to produce image data of high quality. The RSA contains a separate vertical and horizontal filter units for vertical resizing and horizontal resizing operations, vertical and horizontal position accumulator units, a configuration register unit for loading the vertical and horizontal position accumulator units, and a memory management unit to interface the RSA to external memory banks. The vertical and horizontal filter units contain nine multipliers and nine corresponding coefficient memories, with each memory preferably containing storage space for thirty-two coefficients. The coefficients are addressed on a pixel by pixel basis in response to the outputs of the vertical and horizontal position accumulator units. The RSA is designed to handle an input data stream that contains multiple color components and simultaneously resizes all of the color components.

Digital resampling integrated circuit for fast image resizing

An processing system having a disk storage unit which acts as physical RAM storage. A disk controller, disk and small RAM unit are controlled by a separate CPU and MMU using a virtual memory scheme. This assembly is connected to a set of processing nodes by way of a bus, such that each of the nodes can access the memory directly through the MMU as virtual memory. The CPU controls the transfer of data to and from the disk as it is requested from the nodes. The nodes may then proceed to process the image data without any interaction with the host system.

Image processing apparatus having disk storage resembling RAM memory

A multi-processor apparatus is disclosed which includes an array of separately addressable memory units and an array of separately addressable processors. A first unidirectional bus delivers data from a selected processor to a selected memory unit. A second unidirectional data bus delivers data from a selected memory unit to a selected processor. Arbitor circuits control the flow of data to these data buses.

Growing community of inventors

Webster, NY, United States of America

Thomas N Berarducci