A method of filtering an image filter is disclosed. The filter is provided for a digital camera including image sensors sensitive to light, a color filter placed over sensitive elements of the sensors and patterned according to a Bayer mosaic pattern layout and an interpolation algorithm joining together the digital information provided by differently colored adjacent pixels in said Bayer pattern. The filter is adaptive and includes a noise level computation block for operating directly on a said Bayer pattern data set of for each color channel thus removing noise while simultaneously preserving picture detail.

Noise filter for bayer pattern image data

A method and apparatus for encoding and decoding data that includes generating transformed signals in response to input data. In one embodiment, the transformed signals are generated using a reversible wavelet transform. The present invention also includes a method and apparatus for compressing the transform signals into data representing a losslessly compressed version of the input data. In one embodiment, the present invention decomposes the input data using reversible wavelet transforms.

Compression and decompression system with reversible wavelets and lossy reconstruction

A method of reducing artifacts in an image previously processed by block transform encoding may comprise the steps of: determining block boundaries; determining an approximate metric of artifact visibility; optionally interpolating across block boundaries; adaptively filtering luminance; optionally adaptively filtering chrominance; adaptively adjusting local saturation variation; and adaptively simulating high spatial frequency image detail; wherein the adaptive steps are executed to an extent or in an amount depending on the metric or standard or measurement of artifact visibility.

Removal of block encoding artifacts

The present invention is directed to diagnostic imaging of small pulmonary nodules. There are two main stages in the evaluation of pulmonary nodules from Computed Tomography (CT) scans: detection, in which the locations of possible nodules are identified, and characterization, in which a nodule is represented by measured features that may be used to evaluate the probability that the nodule is cancer. Currently, the most useful prediction feature is growth rate, which requires the comparison of size estimates from two CT scans recorded at different times. The present invention includes methods for detection and feature extraction for size characterization. The invention focuses the analysis of small pulmonary nodules that are less than 1 centimeter in size, but is also suitable for larger nodules as well.

System, Method and Apparatus for Small Pulmonary Nodule Computer Aided Diagnosis from Computed Tomography Scans

Described herein are methods and devices that employ a plurality of image sensors to capture a target image of a scene. As described, positioning at least one reflective or refractive surface near the plurality of image sensors enables the sensors to capture together an image of wider field of view and longer focal length than any sensor could capture individually by using the reflective or refractive surface to guide a portion of the image scene to each sensor. The different portions of the scene captured by the sensors may overlap, and may be aligned and cropped to generate the target image.

Multi-camera system using folded optics

A device and method for filtering out the noise generated due to coding of image data signals. The device has a threshold determining unit, a binary index unit, a filter selecting unit, and an adaptive filtering unit. The threshold determining unit 4 divides each pixel of the input image data into two gray levels. The binary indexes defined by the gray level are checked by a window with a prescribed size. If the region in the window is determined to be a homogeneous region, a heterogeneous region, or an impulse noise region (block 5), the filter selecting unit selects a filter corresponding to the determined region, and the image data is processed by the selected filter.

Method and apparatus for selecting an adaptive filter for image data

Methods for contrast enhancement of digital images are provided. A method of adaptive histogram equalization is provided that determines weighting factors for discriminating between sub-regions of a digital image to be more enhanced or less enhanced. Another method for content adaptive local histogram equalization is provided that uses a mapping function in which the dynamic range is not changed by the transformation. A third method for contrast enhancement is provided that includes dividing a digital image into a plurality of regions of pixels, and for each region in the plurality of regions, determining a threshold gray level for the region, generating a mapping curve for the region based on the threshold gray level, and applying the generated mapping curve to each pixel in the region to enhance contrast.

Methods and systems for contrast enhancement

A new technique for entropy coding named universal VLC (i.e., UVLC) was developed and applied to the motion vector. It was shown that UVLC for motion vector coding provides good performance in terms of coding efficiency as well as error resiliency. In this paper UVLC for DCT coefficient coding is presented. The features of the scheme are: (1) adaptable by parametric representation, (2) support of very low bitrate mode and (3) extensible to error resilient mode with bi-directionally decodable code. This favors a flexible image and video coding that should handle a variety of picture types and applications. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme slightly outperforms several VLC tables of existing standards in terms of coding efficiency. It is also expected that the proposed scheme can simplify the implementation and processing of VLC decoder. It shall also be noted that UVLC is being considered as a candidate component technique for ITU-T H.26L, i.e., next generation video coding algorithm standard.

Universal variable length code for DCT coding

The objective of the invention is to make high-efficiency compressed coding for images. In coding of video signals in this application example, the edge is extracted in a frame of the input image in block 10 . In block 11 , classification is made into blocks where edge is present and blocks free of edge. In block 12 , for the block where edge is present, based on the correlation between the edge direction and the distribution of the DCT coefficients, the optimum scanning order is determined and coding is performed by the scanning order.

Coding method for video signal based on the correlation between the edge direction and the distribution of the DCT coefficients

This invention corrects chrominance misalignment that occurs during chrominance down-sampling and up-sampling. The invention extracts a binary index from the corresponding luminance signal. The binary index enables generation of a filter window. On down-sampling the filter window is applied to a block of source chrominance pixels which are filtered or not based upon the binary index. On up-sampling the binary index of the filter window for the target chrominance pixels determines which are filtered or not.

Yuji Itoh

Papers

Method and apparatus for selecting an adaptive filter for image data

Methods and systems for contrast enhancement

Universal variable length code for DCT coding

Coding method for video signal based on the correlation between the edge direction and the distribution of the DCT coefficients

Joint pre-/post-processing approach for chrominance mis-alignment