Methods and apparatus for shared image processing among multiple devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12347065-B2
Application number	US-202318342907-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 28, 2023
Priority date	Apr 15, 2020
Publication date	Jul 1, 2025
Grant date	Jul 1, 2025

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for shared image processing among multiple devices. In one embodiment, an exemplary action camera performs a partial multiband blend. Even though the action camera may not have resources to handle the multiband blend of the entire action camera's footage, it can do a significant portion. The partially blended content can be used in ready-to-share applications, or completely blended by another device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for shared image processing, the method comprising:
obtaining a first image processed data structure associated with a first subset of an image processing set, where the image processing set corresponds to an image quality criteria;
performing a second subset of the image processing set on the first image processed data structure; and
consuming a second image processed data structure corresponding to the image quality criteria.

2. The method for shared image processing of claim 1 , where the first image processed data structure includes a partially blended data structure of spherical content with metadata, the metadata comprising low frequency unblended data.

3. The method for shared image processing of claim 1 , where performing the second subset of the shared image processing set comprises completing a partial blending operation performed by another device.

4. The method for shared image processing of claim 1 , where performing the second subset of the image processing set comprises blending low frequency components in metadata of the first image processed data structure.

5. The method for shared image processing of claim 1 , where consuming the second image processed data structure comprises displaying blended spherical content.

6. The method for shared image processing of claim 1 , where:
the first subset of the image processing set comprises a first portion of a stitching operation, and
the second subset of the image processing set comprises a second portion of the stitching operation.

7. A method for shared image processing, the method comprising:
receiving a partially blended data structure with metadata, the metadata comprising low frequency unblended data associated with the partially blended data structure;
completing a blend on the partially blended data structure creating a fully blended data structure; and
consuming the fully blended data structure.

8. The method for shared image processing of claim 7 , where the partially blended data structure comprises spherical content.

9. The method for shared image processing of claim 7 , where consuming the fully blended data structure comprises displaying the fully blended data structure on an attached display.

10. The method for shared image processing of claim 7 , further comprising removing the metadata in response to creating the fully blended data structure.

11. The method for shared image processing of claim 7 , further comprising displaying the partially blended data structure on an attached display prior to completing the blend.

12. The method for shared image processing of claim 11 , where the partially blended data structure comprises overlapping image data of an overlapping region captured by a plurality of capture devices, the method further comprising:
stripping the partially blended data structure of overlapping image data prior to displaying the partially blended data structure.

13. The method for shared image processing of claim 7 , where the partially blended data structure comprises overlapping bands of image data with downscaling operations of a multiband blend of the overlapping bands, the overlapping bands of image data comprising a plurality of versions of pixel data of an overlapping region.

14. The method for shared image processing of claim 7 , where the partially blended data structure comprises overlapping bands of image data with downscaling operations of a multiband blend of the overlapping bands and a portion of upscaling operations of the multiband blend of the overlapping bands, the overlapping bands of image data comprising a plurality of versions of pixel data of an overlapping region.

15. The method for shared image processing of claim 14 , where completing the blend on the partially blended data structure comprises performing another portion of upscaling operations of the multiband blend of the overlapping bands.

16. The method for shared image processing of claim 15 , where performing the another portion of upscaling operations of the multiband blend uses the low frequency unblended data of the metadata.

17. The method for shared image processing of claim 15 , where:
the portion of upscaling operations comprises upscaling operations on a first segment of a final blended area of the partially blended data structure, and performing the another portion of upscaling operations of the multiband blend of the overlapping bands comprises performing the another portion of upscaling operations on a second segment of the final blended area of the partially blended data structure.

18. An apparatus for shared image processing, comprising:
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising one or more instructions which, when executed by the processor causes the apparatus to:
obtain a partially downscaled image and metadata comprising remaining levels of a multiband blend associated with the partially downscaled image;
perform blending and upscaling operations using the metadata creating a blended image; and
consume the blended image.

19. The apparatus for shared image processing of claim 18 , where the one or more instructions, when executed by the processor, further causes the apparatus to complete a downscale operation on the partially downscaled image using the metadata creating a completely downscaled image, where the blending and upscale operations are performed on the completely downscaled image.

20. The apparatus for shared image processing of claim 18 , where the partially downscaled image comprises a stitched plurality of hyper-hemispherical content in a representation that approximates an entire sphere with at least one overlapping region.

Assignees

• Gopro Inc

Inventors

• Marc Gladys Jocelyne
• Lefebvre Alexis
• Douady Cesar
• Guerin Guillaume

Classifications

• G06T3/16

  Spatio-temporal transformations, e.g. video cubism · CPC title

• G06T7/30

  Determination of transform parameters for the alignment of images, i.e. image registration · CPC title

• G06T2207/20132

  Image cropping · CPC title

• G06T2207/20016

  Hierarchical, coarse-to-fine, multiscale or multiresolution image processing; Pyramid transform · CPC title

• G06T3/4038 Primary

  Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images · CPC title