The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 07, 2004
Filed:
Oct. 02, 2000
Radovan V. Krtolica, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
Methods and apparatus for creating a skeletal representation ( A) of a pixel image ( ) composed of connected components ( and ). The skeletal representation ( A) is obtained by dividing each connected component ( ) into a line segment having plural slices, calculating a minimal bounding rectangle (MBR) of each line segment, replacing each line segment with a thin line approximately formed by centroid pixels of the slices ( S) inside the MBR, and connecting the resulting thin lines ( and ). One of the many benefits of using the disclosed methods and apparatus is that the resulting thin lined graph ( A), i.e., the skeletal representation, is isomorphic to the original pixel image ( ).