Marking physical objects and related systems and methods
AssigneeDigimarc Corporation
InventorsPhilip R. Patterson, Neil E. Lofgren, Tyler J. McKinley
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention provides techniques whereby objects are readily identified. These inventive techniques are ideally suited for traffic monitoring. In one implementation a vehicle is marked with a machine-readable code on an outer, top surface of the vehicle. An elevated or aerial platform captures an image of the vehicle. A detector analyzes the captured image to recover the machine-readable code. The vehicle is identified from such. Traffic congestion can be determined by monitoring the movement of a marked vehicle through the city traffic. In some implementations the machine-readable code comprises an identifier, which is used to interrogate a database for related information.
Claims27
A method to uniquely identify a mobile object depicted in an image, wherein the image is captured from an elevated or aerial platform, said method comprising the steps of:
- analyzing the image to detect machine-readable code associated with the depicted mobile object, wherein the mobile object is steganographically marked with the machine-readable code prior to image capture, and wherein the machine-readable code comprises an identifier;
- decoding the machine-readable code to obtain the identifier;
- and
- identifying the mobile object via the identifier.
A method of monitoring traffic comprising the steps of:
- marking a vehicle which will travel on a road with machine-readable code, wherein the machine-readable code is provided on a vehicle surface so as to be detectable from aerial imagery captured of the marked vehicle, but remains generally imperceptible to a human observer of the vehicle, and wherein the machine-readable code comprises a plural-bit identifier;
- capturing an image of the marked vehicle;
- decoding the machine-readable code to recover the plural-bit identifier;
- and
- monitoring the vehicle based at least in part by the plural-bit identifier.
A method of identifying a vehicle comprising the steps of:
- optically capturing an image of the vehicle from an aerial platform, wherein the vehicle includes a steganographically hidden marking that is hidden prior to image capture, and wherein the marking is hidden on a vehicle surface so as to be viewable from the aerial platform, and wherein the marking includes a plural-bit identifier;
- analyzing the captured image to detect the steganographically hidden marking and to obtain the plural-bit identifier;
- and
- identifying the vehicle based on the plural-bit identifier.
A mobile vehicle comprising an outer surface having machine-readable code provided thereon, the machine-readable code being optically detectable, wherein the machine-readable code serves to uniquely identify the vehicle from aerial images including the vehicle.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.