System and method for assessing usability of captured images

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9870609-B2
Application number	US-201615172526-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 3, 2016
Priority date	Jun 3, 2016
Publication date	Jan 16, 2018
Grant date	Jan 16, 2018

Abstract

A system estimates quality of a digital image by accessing a corpus of digital images of one or more subjects, such as a facet of a property. The system will receive, for at least a subset of the corpus, an indicator that one or more patches of each image in the subset is out of focus. The system will train a classifier by obtaining a feature representation of each pixel in each image, along with a focus value that represents an extent to which each pixel in the image is in focus or out of focus. The system will use the classifier to analyze pixels of a new digital image and assess whether each analyzed pixel in the new digital image is in focus or out of focus. The system may use the image to assess whether an incident occurred, such as storm-related damage to the property.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for estimating image quality of a digital image, the system comprising:
a processing device; and
a computer-readable medium containing programming instructions that are configured to cause the processing device to:
access a corpus of digital images of one or more subjects taken by one or more image capturing devices,
receive, for at least a subset of the corpus of digital images, an indicator that one or more patches of each image in the subset is out of focus,
train a classifier by obtaining and storing in a data store:
an n-dimensional feature representation of each pixel in each image; and
a focus value that represents an extent to which each pixel in the image is in focus or out of focus, and

use the classifier to analyze pixels of a new digital image and output an assessment of whether each analyzed pixel in the new digital image is in focus or out of focus.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising additional programming instructions that are configured to cause the processing device to:
analyze the assessments prepared for each of a plurality of new digital images;
for each new digital image that has been assessed, determine whether the assessment for the new digital image satisfies a usability criterion; and
if an assessment for a new digital image satisfies a usability criterion, use that new digital image to determine whether that new digital image depicts damage that corresponds to a particular incident, otherwise not do so.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the usability criterion comprises:
a requirement that all pixels of the new digital image have at least a threshold focus value;
a requirement that an average focus value for all pixels in the new digital image be equal to or above a threshold focus value;
a requirement that no more than a threshold number of pixels in the new digital image have a focus value that is less than a minimum acceptable focus value; or
a requirement that no more than a first threshold number of pixels in the new digital image have a focus value that is less than a first minimum acceptable focus value, and that no more than a second threshold number of pixels in the new digital image have a focus value that is less than a second minimum acceptable focus value.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions to obtain the n-dimensional feature representation of each pixel in each image comprise instructions to use a Convolutional Neural Network to:
apply n filters to a neighborhood around each pixel;
determine whether each filtered neighborhood matches a kernel;
assign a value at or near 1 to the pixels of any filtered neighborhood that matches the kernel;
assign a value at or near zero to the pixels of any filtered neighborhood that does not match the kernel;
use the assigned values to determine the focus value.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the programming instructions that are configured to cause the processing device to use the assigned values to determine the focus value comprise instructions to do so using a two-layer neural network with sigmoid outputs.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing device is part of a mobile electronic device having a display and an imaging device, and the programming instructions are also configured to cause the processing device to:
cause the display to output a captured image while the imaging device is capturing additional images of one or more subjects; and
with each captured image, cause the mobile electronic device to output the assessment of whether each analyzed pixel in captured image is in focus or out of focus.

7. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
an imaging device; and
additional programming instructions configured to cause the processing device to:
determine whether the assessment for the new digital image satisfies a usability criterion; and
if the assessment does not satisfy the usability criterion, automatically cause the imaging device to capture an additional new digital image.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
an aerial drone that includes an imaging device and a transceiver; and
additional programming instructions that are configured to cause the processing device to:
determine whether the assessment for the new digital image satisfies a usability criterion; and
if the assessment does not satisfy the usability criterion, cause the imaging device of the aerial drone to capture an additional new digital image.

9. The system of claim 1 , further comprising additional programming instructions that are configured to cause the processing device to:
if the assessment does not satisfy the usability criterion, prompt a user of the mobile electronic device to enter a navigational command for the aerial drone; and
in response to receiving the navigational command, use a transmitter of the mobile electronic device to send the navigational command to the aerial drone.

10. A system for estimating image quality of a digital image, the system comprising:
a processing device;
an imaging device; and
a computer-readable medium containing programming instructions that are configured to cause the processing device to:
access a corpus of digital images of one or more subjects taken by one or more image capturing devices,
receive, for at least a subset of the corpus of digital images, an indicator that one or more patches of each image in the subset is out of focus,
train a classifier by obtaining and storing in a data store:
an n-dimensional feature representation of each pixel in each image; and
a focus value that represents an extent to which each pixel in the image is in focus or out of focus, and

use the classifier to analyze pixels of a new digital image and generate an assessment of whether each analyzed pixel in the new digital image is in focus or out of f determine whether the assessment for the new digital image satisfies a usability criterion; and
if the assessment satisfies the usability criterion, use the new digital image to determine whether that new digital image depicts damage that corresponds to a particular incident, otherwise automatically cause the imaging device to capture an additional new digital image.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the usability criterion comprises:
a requirement that all pixels of the new digital image have at least a threshold focus value;
a requirement that an average focus value for all pixels in the new digital image be equal to or above a threshold focus value;
a requirement that no more than a threshold number of pixels in the new digital image have a focus value that is less than a minimum acceptable focus value; or
a requirement that no more than a first threshold number of pixels in the new digital image have a focus value that is less than a first minimum acceptable focus value, and that no more than a second threshold number of pixels in the new digital image have a focus value that is less than a second minimum acceptable focus value.

12. The system of claim 10 , further comprising:
an aerial drone that includes the imaging device and a transceiver; and
additional programming instructions that are configured to cause the processing device to:
if the assessment does not satisfy the usability criterion, prompt a user of the mobile electronic device to enter a navigational command for the aerial drone, and
in response to receiving the navigational command, use a transmitter of the mobile electronic device to send the navigational command to the aerial drone.

13. A method of estimating image quality of a digital image, the method comprising:
by a processing d

Assignees

• Conduent Business Services Llc

Inventors

• Kompalli Pramod Sankar
• Sharma Arjun
• Howe Richard L

Classifications

• G06T2207/30168

  Image quality inspection · CPC title

• G06T2207/20081

  Training; Learning · CPC title

• G06T7/0002 Primary

  Inspection of images, e.g. flaw detection · CPC title

• G06T2207/10032

  Satellite or aerial image; Remote sensing · CPC title

• G06V30/19173

  Classification techniques · CPC title