1284results about How to "Increase frame rate" patented technology

The present invention comprises a foveated imaging system capable of capturing a wide field of view image and a foveated image, where the foveated image is a controllable region of interest of the wide field of view image.

Single-camera image processing methods are disclosed for 3D navigation within ordinary moving video. Along with color and brightness, XYZ coordinates can be defined for every pixel. The resulting geometric models can be used to obtain measurements from digital images, as an alternative to on-site surveying and equipment such as laser range-finders. Motion parallax is used to separate foreground objects from the background. This provides a convenient method for placing video elements within different backgrounds, for product placement, and for merging video elements with computer-aided design (CAD) models and point clouds from other sources. If home users can save video fly-throughs or specific 3D elements from video, this method provides an opportunity for proactive, branded media sharing. When this image processing is used with a videoconferencing camera, the user's movements can automatically control the viewpoint, creating 3D hologram effects on ordinary televisions and computer screens.

A system for x-ray fluoroscopic imaging of bodily tissue in which a scintillation screen and a charge coupled device (CCD) is used to accurately image selected tissue. An x-ray source generates x-rays which pass through a region of a subject's body, forming an x-ray image which reaches the scintillation screen. The scintillation screen re-radiates a spatial intensity pattern corresponding to the image, the pattern being detected by the CCD sensor. In a preferred embodiment the imager uses four 8×8-cm three-side buttable CCDs coupled to a CsI:T1 scintillator by straight (non-tapering) fiberoptics and tiled to achieve a field of view (FOV) of 16×16-cm at the image plane. Larger FOVs can be achieved by tiling more CCDs in a similar manner. The imaging system can be operated in a plurality of pixel pitch modes such as 78, 156 or 234-μm pixel pitch modes. The CCD sensor may also provide multi-resolution imaging. The image is digitized by the sensor and processed by a controller before being stored as an electronic image. Other preferred embodiments may include each image being directed on flat panel imagers made from but not limited to, amorphous silicon and / or amorphous selenium to generate individual electronic representations of the separate images used for diagnostic or therapeutic applications.

To provide a hold-type display device without a problem of motion blur and a driving method thereof. The length of a period for displaying a blanking image in one frame period is controlled in accordance with a control parameter showing the degree of motion blur, and the level of a signal supplied to a display element is changed in accordance with the length of the period for displaying the blanking image. Accordingly, the hold-type display device without a problem of motion blur and the driving method thereof can be provided.

A CMOS image sensor includes column-parallel ADCs. Each of the ADCs includes a comparator and an up / down counter. With this configuration, digital values of pixels in a plurality of rows can be added without using additional circuits, such as an adder and a line memory device, and the frame rate can be increased while maintaining constant sensitivity.

An optical touchpad system that includes a waveguide having a plurality of waveguide layers. For example, the waveguide may include an intervening layer, a signal layer, and / or other layers. The intervening layer may be defined by a first surface, a second surface and a substantially transparent material having a first index of refraction disposed between the first and the second surface of the interface layer. The signal layer may be defined by a first surface, a second surface and a substantially transparent material having a second index of refraction that is greater than the first index of refraction.

One embodiment of the present invention includes a parallel processing unit (PPU) that performs pixel shading at variable granularities. For effects that vary at a low frequency across a pixel block, a coarse shading unit performs the associated shading operations on a subset of the pixels in the pixel block. By contrast, for effects that vary at a high frequency across the pixel block, fine shading units perform the associated shading operations on each pixel in the pixel block. Because the PPU implements coarse shading units and fine shading units, the PPU may tune the shading rate per-effect based on the frequency of variation across each pixel group. By contrast, conventional PPUs typically compute all effects per-pixel, performing redundant shading operations for low frequency effects. Consequently, to produce similar image quality, the PPU consumes less power and increases the rendering frame rate compared to a conventional PPU.

The invention provides a car-mounted imaging apparatus that renders a frame rate variable and yet does not spoil image quality and does not either invite the drop of sensitivity and deterioration of an S / N ratio. The car-mounted imaging apparatus 1 has two-dimensional imaging means (pixel unit 3, vertical scanning unit 4, horizontal scanning unit 5, output unit 7) having a large number of pixels 2 arranged in a two-dimensional matrix, and pixel information addition means (pixel switch control unit 8) for combining a plurality of pixels 2 and adding and extracting their pixel information. When the number of combination of the pixels 2 is changed, a frame rate becomes variable.

An optical touchpad system is disclosed that may be easily integrated into a variety of applications. One feature of the optical touchpad system that may contribute to this versatility may be the ability of the optical touchpad system to function in the same manner independent from a topology and / or opacity of an interface surface of the optical touchpad system. This may enable the interface surface to be composed of any of a variety of materials. This may further enable the interface surface to include various topologies adapted for the application in which the optical touchpad system may be employed.

A digital micro-mirror device (DMD) format conversion system for outputting a stereoscopic encoded optical signal using a DMD and a color wheel is provided. The DMD format conversion system includes a 3D data formatter for receiving an input signal and a DMD data formatter for receiving an output signal having stereoscopic image information and control information from the 3D data formatter and for outputting a DMD output signal having stereoscopic image information and control information. A color wheel control signal and output digital micro-mirror device data are synchronized based on an output frame rate generated by the 3D data formatter independent of the original input frame rate.

A method and system for accurately imaging scenes having large brightness variations. If a particular object in the scene is of interest, the imager exposure setting is adjusted based on the brightness of that object. For high dynamic range imaging of an entire scene, two imagers with different viewpoints and exposure settings are used, or the exposure setting of a single imager is varied as multiple images are captured. An optical flow technique can be used to track and image moving objects, or a video sequence can be generated by selectively updating only those pixels whose brightnesses are within the preferred brightness range of the imager.

One embodiment of the present invention includes a parallel processing unit (PPU) that performs pixel shading at variable granularities. For effects that vary at a low frequency across a pixel block, a coarse shading unit performs the associated shading operations on a subset of the pixels in the pixel block. By contrast, for effects that vary at a high frequency across the pixel block, fine shading units perform the associated shading operations on each pixel in the pixel block. Because the PPU implements coarse shading units and fine shading units, the PPU may tune the shading rate per-effect based on the frequency of variation across each pixel group. By contrast, conventional PPUs typically compute all effects per-pixel, performing redundant shading operations for low frequency effects. Consequently, to produce similar image quality, the PPU consumes less power and increases the rendering frame rate compared to a conventional PPU.

Frequency-steered acoustic arrays transmitting and / or receiving multiple, angularly dispersed acoustic beams are used to generate 2D and 3D images. Input pulses to the arrays are generally non-linear, frequency-modulated pulses. Frequency-steered acoustic arrays may be provided in one-dimensional linear and two dimensional planar and curvilinear configurations, may be operated as single order or multiple order arrays, may employ periodic or non-periodic transducer element spacing, and may be mechanically scanned to generate 2D and 3D volumetric data. Multiple imaging fields of view may generated in different directions by switching the polarity of phase-shifted array transducer elements. Multiple frequency-steered arrays arranged in an X-configuration provide a wide, contiguous field of view and multiple frequency steered arrays arranged in a T-configuration provide orthogonally oriented fields of view. Methods and systems for operating acoustic arrays in a frequency-steered mode in combination a mechanical beam steering mode, electronic time-delay and phase shift beam forming modes, and phase comparison angle estimation modes are also provided.

In one embodiment, an ultrasound imaging method comprises: providing a probe that includes one or more transducer elements for transmitting and receiving ultrasound waves; generating a sequence of spatially distinct transmit beams which differ in one or more of origin and angle; determining a transmit beam spacing substantially based upon a combination of actual and desired transmit beam characteristics, thereby achieving a faster echo acquisition rate compared to a transmit beam spacing based upon round-trip transmit-receive beam sampling requirements; storing coherent receive echo data, from two or more transmit beams of the spatially distinct transmit beams; combining coherent receive echo data from at least two or more transmit beams to achieve a substantially spatially invariant synthesized transmit focus at each echo location; and combining coherent receive echo data from each transmit firing to achieve dynamic receive focusing at each echo location.

Mechanisms for increasing the rate of acquisition of compressed / encoded image representations are disclosed. An imaging system may deliver subsets of a modulated light stream onto respective light sensing devices. The light sensing devices may be sampled in parallel. Samples from each light sensing device may be used to construct a respective sub-image of a final image. The parallelism allows compressed images to be acquired at a higher rate. The number of light sensing devices and / or the number of pixels per image may be selected to achieve a target image acquisition rate. In another embodiment, spatial portions of the incident light stream are separated and delivered to separate light modulators. In yet another embodiment, the incident light stream is split into a plurality of beams, each of which retains the image present in the incident light stream and is delivered to a separate light modulator.

The present invention provides methods and systems for scanning an illumination spot over a target area. The present invention removes stored energy from a scanning element to stop the scanning element from vibrating and to substantially return the scanning element to its starting position so as to enable high frame rates.

The invention has two main embodiments, a first called column switching and blanking and a second embodiment called doubling. The first embodiment is a projector for displaying a stereoscopic image with projector using one or more digital micromirror devices positioned into a plurality of columns and rows. The projector itself includes a light source, an optical system, a video processing system and a data system for driving the micromirror devices. The data subsystem provides separate data to a plurality of column pairs of the micromirrors. The projector includes a stereoscopic control circuit having a first state of the control circuit for inputting a first eye view of the stereoscopic image and causing the micromirrors of a first column of each column pair to be in various on and off states during said first eye view of said stereoscopic image and for causing all of said micromirrors of a second column of each column pair to be in an off state during said first eye view of said stereoscopic image. A second state of the control circuit is used for inputting a second eye view of the stereoscopic image and causes the micromirrors of the second column of each column pair to be in various on and off states during the second eye view of the stereoscopic image and for causing all of the micromirrors of the first column of each column pair to be in an off state during the second eye view of said stereoscopic image. The second embodiment is a projector for displaying a stereoscopic image with the projector using one or more digital micromirror devices positioned into a plurality of columns and rows. The projector includes a light source, an optical system, a video processing system and a data system for driving said micromirror devices. The data subsystem provides separate data to a plurality of column pairs of the micromirrors. The projector includes a stereoscopic control circuit having a first state for inputting a first eye view of the stereoscopic image and causing each micromirror of each column pair to be in various but identical on and off states during said first eye view of said stereoscopic image. A second state of the control circuit for inputs a second eye view of the stereoscopic image and causes each micromirror of each column pair to be in various but identical on and off states during the second eye view of the stereoscopic image.

An apparatus and method by which an image is projected to pupils of a viewer. Preferably, the image covers only areas occupied by the pupils and tracks the areas occupied by the pupils such as to provide continuous display of the imagery to a viewer. The method is to dynamically control the direction of light into sub-apertures selected by a tracking device. By imaging selectively into the sub-apertures where the pupils are temporally located instead of imaging into a generally large area, the disclosed apparatus is power efficient and exclusive because the projected images are covert. This method is applicable to most biocular displays, for instance, but not limited to “see through” systems, which overlay imagery over real world scenes and where geometrically precise projection is critical. In one embodiment, the pupil scan apparatus is combined with a retinal scan apparatus to provide security. In this manner, only an authorized user of the apparatus can operate it.

Preferred embodiment systems of the invention use a scalable number of cameras that can image a volume of interest from plurality of angles. The volume can be large and illuminated with general non-coherent illumination. Synchronized cameras process data in real time to addresses particle overlap issues while also increasing observable volumes. Systems of the invention also use higher frame rate cameras to increase the amount of particle travel in each frame. Approaches of the invention alleviate the concerns with additional data accumulation by conducting image processing and segmentation at the time of acquisition prior to transfer from a camera to eliminate a data transfer bottleneck between camera and computer and eliminate a data storage problem. A heterogeneous CPU / GPU processor cluster processes data sent from the plurality of programmable, synchronized cameras and conducting multi-camera correspondence, 3D reconstruction, tracking and result visualization in real time by spreading processing over multiple CPUs and GPUs. Systems of the invention be scaled to hundreds of cameras and fully characterize fluid flows extending to room size and larger.

An apparatus and method by which an image is projected to pupils of a viewer. Preferably, the image covers only areas occupied by the pupils and tracks the areas occupied by the pupils such as to provide continuous display of the imagery to a viewer. The method is to dynamically control the direction of light into sub-apertures selected by a tracking device. By imaging selectively into the sub-apertures where the pupils are temporally located instead of imaging into a generally large area, the disclosed apparatus is power efficient and exclusive because the projected images are covert. This method is applicable to most biocular displays, for instance, but not limited to “see through” systems, which overlay imagery over real world scenes and where geometrically precise projection is critical. In one embodiment, the pupil scan apparatus is combined with a retinal scan apparatus to provide security. In this manner, only an authorized user of the apparatus can operate it.

The invention discloses a method for implementing online tests of stream flow based on video images, and belongs to the technical field of non-contact open channel flow measurement. The method relates to a water flow tracing system, a water surface illuminating system, a video flow acquisition system, a camera calibrating system, an image processing system and a flow estimating system, trace particles are thrown in a flow measuring stream segment by the water flow tracing system, a camera shoots a water surface video stream, frames are extracted at fixed intervals and are processed digitally, the image processing system processes digital images according to ground control point coordinate information provided by the camera calibrating system, and finally, the stream flow is computed by the aid of the flow estimating system according to a flow rate and area method. By the aid of the method, complicity of stream flow measurement is reduced, simultaneously, high measurement precision can be guaranteed, and the stream flow can be dynamically monitored in extreme environments.

An apparatus and method for ultrafast real-time optical imaging that can be used for imaging dynamic events such as microfluidics or laser surgery is provided. The apparatus and methods encode spatial information from a sample into a back reflection of a two-dimensional spectral brush that is generated with a two-dimensional disperser and a light source that is mapped in to the time domain with a temporal disperser. The temporal waveform is preferably captured by an optical detector, converted to an electrical signal that is digitized and processed to provide two dimensional and three dimensional images. The produced signals can be optically or electronically amplified. Detection may be improved with correlation matching against a database in the time domain or the spatial domain. Embodiments for endoscopy, microscopy and simultaneous imaging and laser ablation with a single fiber are illustrated.

A light modulating device comprises a spatial light modulator and a homogenizing element. A group of at least two adjacent pixels of the spatial light modulator form a macropixel: The spatial light modulator is of a type such that its pixels comprise a variable content. Each macropixel is used to represent a numerical value which is manifested physically by the states of the pixels of the spatial light modulator which form the macropixel. For each macropixel a homogenizing element is present in the optical path after the macropixel. The homogenizing element comprises an optical input and an optical output. The homogenizing element is adapted such that output light of the macropixel is entering the optical input of the homogenizing element and is mixed within the homogenizing element and is output at the optical output of the homogenizing element.

To provide a system, apparatus and method of changing frame rate of cameras according to the detector that has sent an alarm signal, in order to optimize utilization of hardware resources. An apparatus for setting a frame rate under which images are captured by a camera in an image capturing system having a plurality of cameras and a plurality of detectors, the apparatus including: detector interface for receiving a first signal from at least one of the sensors; association unit for associating the first signal with information related to the camera; calculation unit for calculating a frame rate of each of the plurality of cameras based on the association between the first signal and the information related to the cameras; setting unit for setting the frame rate of the camera calculation by the calculation unit; and second reception unit (capture card) for receiving image data from the camera at a frame rate set by the setting unit.

The present invention discloses an ultrasound imaging system and method based on simultaneous multiple transmit-focusing using the weighted orthogonal chirp signals so that resolution of an ultrasound image is enhanced without sacrifice in the frame rate. The ultrasound imaging system according to the present invention includes: a storing means for storing weighted orthogonal signals including N number of orthogonal codes wherein the orthogonal codes are orthogonal to each other; a transmitter for transmitting simultaneously the weighted orthogonal signals as ultrasound transmission signals to corresponding N number of focal points within the target object; a receiver for receiving signals reflected from the N number of focal points corresponding to the transmitted ultrasound signals; a pulse-compressor for pulse-compressing with respect to each orthogonal code by extracting the stored N number of orthogonal codes from the reflected signals; a producer for producing receive-focused signals from the pulse-compressed signals; and a display for displaying the receive-focused signals by processing them. As a result, transmission signals are simultaneously transmitted to the plurality of focal points and received signals are separated on reception, thereby improving resolution without sacrifice in the frame rate.

A power-saving method for an optical navigation device is proposed, wherein the image capture frame rate of a sensor is controlled according to the moving speed of the optical navigation device. The image capture frame rate is determined based on the variations of a horizontal displacement and a vertical displacement of the optical navigation device for saving power. Moreover, when the optical navigation device is in the sleeping mode, it is not necessary to generate a current to drive the sensor to monitor whether the optical navigation device moves or not. A displacement detector (e.g., a mechanical displacement trigger) is used instead to generate a current for breaking off the sleeping mode to accomplish the power-saving object.

A bar code reader 10 includes a housing 20 including one or more transparent windows H, V and defining a housing interior region. As a target object is swiped or presented in relation to the transparent windows an image of the target object is captured. Cameras C1-C6 have an image capture sensor array with a global shutter is positioned within the housing interior region for capturing an image of a bar code within a camera field of view. All the cameras produce images in a sequential manner during an image frame time period. An image processing system has a processor for decoding a bar code carried by the target object. The processing system responds to signals from a light sensor to terminate object illumination when an adequate image exposure has transpired.