Methods and arrangements for identifying objects

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017249491-A1
Application number	US-201715462597-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 17, 2017
Priority date	Aug 30, 2011
Publication date	Aug 31, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

In some arrangements, product packaging is digitally watermarked over most of its extent to facilitate high-throughput item identification at retail checkouts. Imagery captured by conventional or plenoptic cameras can be processed (e.g., by GPUs) to derive several different perspective-transformed views—further minimizing the need to manually reposition items for identification. Crinkles and other deformations in product packaging can be optically sensed, allowing such surfaces to be virtually flattened to aid identification. Piles of items can be 3D-modelled and virtually segmented into geometric primitives to aid identification, and to discover locations of obscured items. Other data (e.g., including data from sensors in aisles, shelves and carts, and gaze tracking for clues about visual saliency) can be used in assessing identification hypotheses about an item. Logos may be identified and used—or ignored—in product identification. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

First claim

1 - 37 . (canceled)

38 . A method comprising the acts:
with a camera in a shopper's mobile device, capturing imagery depicting plural product packages on a store shelf; processing the imagery to decode digital watermark data encoded in said product packages; and presenting an augmented reality display on a screen of the shopper's mobile device, in which expiration date information for different of the packages is displayed as a graphical overlay on the captured imagery.

39 . The method of claim 38 in which the graphical overlay comprises a colored heat map, wherein the shopper can identify newest and oldest inventory among the plural packages.

40 . The method of claim 38 that includes capturing said imagery using a headworn mobile device.

41 . A mobile system comprising a camera, a screen, a processor, and a memory, the memory containing instructions configuring the system to perform acts including:
capturing imagery depicting plural product packages on a store shelf; processing the imagery to decode digital watermark data encoded in said product packages; and presenting an augmented reality display on the screen, in which expiration date information for different of the packages is displayed as a graphical overlay on the captured imagery.

42 . The system of claim 41 in which the graphical overlay comprises a colored heat map, wherein a user can identify newest and oldest inventory among the plural packages.

43 . A headworn system according to claim 41 .

44 . A non-transitory computer storage medium containing software instructions adapted to configure a processor-based system to perform acts including:
capturing imagery depicting plural product packages on a store shelf; processing the imagery to decode digital watermark data encoded in said product packages; and presenting an augmented reality display on an associated display screen, in which expiration date information for different of the packages is displayed as a graphical overlay on the captured imagery.

45 . The computer storage medium of claim 44 in which the graphical overlay comprises a colored heat map.

Assignees

• Digimarc Corp

Inventors

• Macintosh Brian T
• Rodriguez Tony F
• Davis Bruce L
• Rhoads Geoffrey B
• Lord John D
• Reed Alastair M
• Evans Eric D
• Gerlach Rebecca L
• Bai Yang
• Stach John F
• Filler Tomas
• Footen Marc G
• Calhoon Sean
• Conwell William Y

Classifications

• G06K7/10861 Primary

  sensing of data fields affixed to objects or articles, e.g. coded labels (postal sorting B07C3/14, conveying articles B65G47/48) · CPC title

• G06F3/147 Primary

  using display panels · CPC title

• G06V10/464

  using a plurality of salient features, e.g. bag-of-words [BoW] representations · CPC title

• G06V30/2247

  Characters composed of bars, e.g. CMC-7 · CPC title

• G06V10/242

  by image rotation, e.g. by 90 degrees · CPC title