Patent · US Expired

Methods and apparatus for enhancing gray scale images

US5604545A · kind A · utility

4Cited by
3References
21Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJul 8, 1994
Grant dateFeb 18, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 8, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T2207/20221
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An image enhancement system that efficiently enhances gray scale images, wherein an analog scene is captured and a resulting analog signal is digitized to a raw gray scale image S. Image S is divided into M disjoint non-empty regions R.sub.1 . . . R.sub.M, where S.sub.i identifies region R.sub.i of S. The raw digitized signal S.sub.i is processed in accordance with an enhancement algorithm to obtain a set of enhancement parameters (offsets P.sub.i =(s.sub.ai, s.sub.bi) and weights (w.sub.i)). Digital offsets P.sub.i =(s.sub.ai, s.sub.bi) are converted to analog offsets Q.sub.i =(v.sub.ai, v.sub.bi). The analog signal is stretched and clipped and converted to a digital signal that is an enhanced image signal T.sub.i. The enhanced image signal is multiplied by weight w.sub.i to obtain the final enhanced image U.sub.i. Image U.sub.i forms the region R.sub.i of a final enhanced image U. The multiplied signals are summed to produce an enhanced summed image of the scene.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.