Positional sensor-assisted perspective correction for panoramic photography

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9762794-B2
Application number	US-201113109878-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 17, 2011
Priority date	May 17, 2011
Publication date	Sep 12, 2017
Grant date	Sep 12, 2017

Abstract

This disclosure pertains to devices, methods, and computer readable media for performing positional sensor-assisted panoramic photography techniques in handheld personal electronic devices. Generalized steps that may be used to carry out the panoramic photography techniques described herein include, but are not necessarily limited to: 1.) acquiring image data from the electronic device's image sensor; 2.) performing “motion filtering” on the acquired image data, e.g., using information returned from positional sensors of the electronic device to inform the processing of the image data; 3.) performing image registration between adjacent captured images; 4.) performing geometric corrections on captured image data, e.g., due to perspective changes and/or camera rotation about a non-center of perspective (COP) camera point; and 5.) “stitching” the captured images together to create the panoramic scene, e.g., blending the image data in the overlap area between adjacent captured images. The resultant stitched panoramic image may be cropped before final storage.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An image processing method, comprising:
obtaining a first image at a first time from a device comprising a lens and an image sensor;
obtaining a second image at a second time from the device;
receiving positional information from a sensor in the device, the positional information indicating an amount of change in a position of the device between the first and second times;
dividing the first image into a first plurality of image segments;
dividing th…

Assignees

• Doepke Frank
• Zhou Jianping
• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Doepke Frank
• Zhou Jianping

Classifications

• H04N23/698 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N5/23238 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic