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:
Oct. 17, 2011
Filed:
Feb. 19, 2003
George Politis, Ryde, AU;
George Politis, Ryde, AU;
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
The present invention relates to a method, apparatus and system for optimizing an expression tree (101,902,1102) for compositing an image. Such an expression tree (101,902, 1102) can comprise at least two nodes. Each node is either a graphical element (102,104) or image compositing operator ((103,104) and has a region of the image represented by the node (102,103,104). In the method, for at least one node in the tree, several steps are carried out. The region represented by the node (103,104) is compared to a region representation data structure, which is preferably a quadtree representation, corresponding to one or more regions represented by at least one other node. A determination is then made if the region represented by the node (102,103,104) is totally or partially obscured by the one or more regions. If the region represented by the node is at least partially or totally obscured, the expression tree (101,902,1102) is modified. Modifying the expression tree (101,902,1102) involves applying a clipping operator (58,59) to the node if the region represented by the node is partially obscured. If the node is totally obscured, either removing the node if the node is a graphical element (102, 104) or applying a predetermined set of node replacement rules in accordance with the image compositing operator if the node (103) is a image compositing operator.