US 6,549,679 B1Granted

Automated picture montage method and apparatus

AssigneeArcSoft, Inc.

InventorJuneng Zheng

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Abstract

An automated picture montage method (10) and associated apparatus computer system (12) for accepting an original image (40) and a picture database (28) for creating a montage image (58) from a plurality of pictures (46) to approximate the original image (40). In a pre-index database operation (36), the database (28) is indexed so as to minimize the computational power required. In order to maximize the quality of image, tile regions (42) are analyzed beginning at a center tile region (54) in an outward spiraling order of progression (48). In order to speed the process, analysis is accomplished in a first pass operation (44) and a second pass operation (50). Pictures in the picture database (28) are first selected based on the average color difference of the pictures and the tile region (42). A best match picture is found based on the RGB mean square difference between picture subregions and tile subregions.

Claims6

Dependent claims

A computer method for creating a mosaic image of an original image from a plurality of micro-images, comprising:

(1) dividing the original image into a plurality of tile regions;
(2) calculating the average color of one of the tile regions;
(3) selecting a group of the micro-images that possibly match the one tile region by comparing the average color of the one tile region and the average color of each micro-image, wherein the average color of each micro-image is stored in a database;
(4) dividing the one tile region into a plurality of subregions and calculating the average color of each subregion;
(5) selecting one micro-image from the group that matches the one tile region by comparing the average colors of the subregions of the one tile region and the average colors of corresponding subregions of each micro-image, wherein the average colors of the corresponding subregions of each micro-image are stored in the database;
(6) filling the one tile region with the one micro-image;
(7) repeating actions (1) to (6) for each of the remaining tile regions.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.