1. A blank modular book enclosed in an artistic case to be filled out in writing by members of successive generations of a same family during a long time, comprising a blank book (1) having numbered pages (2) footnotes of which contain random citations of names of important persons or historical facts (3), the book (1) having large dimensions and being divided into modules each one having the same number of pages, said modules being distinguished from one another by colored tags attached to all pages (2) which tags can be seen in order to identify same even when the book (1) is closed, characterized in that the members of successive generations of the same family can write thereon for a long period of many centuries and even constituting a system capable of creating a material and sound link in the family as time goes by resulting in a formation of a clan, wherein each generation can register varied information, remarks, messages and so on in each module so that next generations can get acquainted to, initial writers being provided with a double number of pages to report what is known of previous generations, all tags containing the information about the generation the module is derived, each module also being provided with special transparent plastic bags for keeping photographs and documents and, in view of its long life, the book (1) will require a protection by means of an enclosure (4) provided with handles (5), lodged in a niche (6) of a fine reinforced case (8) provided with a lock (7), holders (10) and having two parts of a same height which are pivoted by hinges (9), a removable metal plate (11) provided with rectangular partitions (12) designed to receive low relief engravings for the formation of a family tree, said plate (11) being lodged and supported by supports (17) in a case cover (8) and a large chamber (18) underneath same, said case (8) being larger than the book (1) and further provided with side compartments (13) extending directed upwardly from its base, said compartments (13) being closed by portholes (16).
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon for execution by a processor to perform a method comprising:
converting a first pixel value from an image frame to a corresponding light intensity using a first contrast amount control variable value; and
reconverting the corresponding light intensity or a derivative thereof to a second pixel value for the image frame using a second contrast amount control variable value.
2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the converting and the reconverting each comprise applying an exposure-density function having an exponential variable comprising the contrast amount control variable.
3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising: repeating the converting and the reconverting for each pixel of the image frame.
4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first contrast amount control variable value is smaller than the second contrast amount control variable value.
5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the derivative of the corresponding light intensity comprises a sum of (i) the corresponding light intensity and (ii) a difference between an ideal exposure level and an average luminance value of a detected skin portion.
6. The computer-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the reconverting the corresponding light intensity comprises
reconverting the derivative of the corresponding light intensity to the second pixel value for the image frame using the second contrast amount control variable value to thereby correct an exposure level of at least the detected skin portion of the image frame along with enhancing a contrast amount of the image frame.
7. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the converting and the reconverting comprise accessing at least one lookup table.
8. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising: building a skin-color model for the image frame by selecting training pixels based on a defined skin color range that is created offline.
9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, further comprising: detecting a skin portion of the image frame using the skin-color model and a predetermined skin pixel probability threshold.
10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, further comprising: correcting an exposure level of the image frame responsive to an average luminance value of the detected skin portion.
11. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the computer- readable comprise at least one of (i) one or more storage media or (ii) one or more transmission media.
12. A device comprising:
a contrast enhancer that is adapted to enhance a contrast of an image frame by re-exposing each pixel of the image frame using an exposure-density function and a ratio of contrast amount control variables.
13. The device as recited in claim 12, wherein the ratio of contrast amount control variables comprises a first contrast amount control variable value and a second contrast amount control variable value; and wherein the contrast enhancer is further adapted to convert respective pixels of the image frame to respective corresponding light intensities using the first contrast amount control variable value and to reconvert the respective corresponding light intensities back to respective pixel values using the second contrast amount control variable value.
14. The device as recited in claim 13, further comprising:
at least one lookup table;
wherein the contrast enhancer is further adapted to effectuate the conversion and the reconversion using the at least one lookup table.
15. The device as recited in claim 12, wherein the exposure- density function comprises:
I
=
f
\u2061
(
S
)
=
G
1
+
\u2147
–
A
\xd7
S
,
wherein the constant G corresponds to a number of gray levels, the constant A corresponds to the contrast amount control variable, the variable S corresponds to light intensity, and the variable I corresponds to luminance pixel values.
16. The device as recited in claim 12, wherein the contrast enhancer comprises an exposure level corrector and contrast enhancer that is adapted to correct an exposure level of at least an area of interest of the image frame while enhancing the contrast of the image frame.
17. The device as recited in claim 12, further comprising:
a skin-color model builder that is capable of accepting a defined skin color range and the image frame as input, the skin-color model builder adapted to select training pixels from the image frame based on the defined skin color range and to build a Gaussian skin-color model at runtime for the image frame using the selected training pixels;
a face detector that is a capable of accepting the Gaussian skin-color model as input, the face detector adapted to scan pixels of the image frame and to add a particular pixel to a set of face pixels if a probability that the particular pixel belongs to a skin color class exceeds a predetermined skin pixel probability threshold; and
an exposure level corrector that is capable of accepting the set of face pixels as input, the exposure level corrector adapted (i) to calculate a difference between an ideal exposure level and an average luminance value for the set of face pixels and (ii) to re-expose each pixel from the image frame responsive to the calculated difference;
wherein the exposure level corrector and the contrast enhancer are capable of operating substantially simultaneously.
18. An arrangement for video image processing in conjunction with contrast enhancement, the arrangement comprising:
conversion means for converting a first pixel value of an image frame to a corresponding light intensity using a first contrast amount control variable value; and
reconversion means for reconverting the corresponding light intensity or a derivative thereof to a second pixel value for the image frame using a second contrast amount control variable value.
19. The arrangement as recited in claim 18, further comprising:
re-exposure means for re-exposing multiple pixels of the image frame responsive to a luminance value of a detected skin portion of the image frame.
20. The arrangement as recited in claim 19, wherein at least the reconversion means and the re-exposure means operate substantially simultaneously.
21. The arrangement as recited in claim 19, wherein the luminance value comprises an average luminance value; and wherein the arrangement further comprises:
calculation means for calculating a difference between the average luminance value of the detected skin portion and an ideal exposure level; and
wherein the re-exposure means operates by re-exposing the multiple pixels of the image frame responsive to the calculated difference.
22. The arrangement as recited in claim 19, further comprising:
selection means for selecting training pixels from the image frame based on a predefined skin color range; and
build means for building a skin-color model using the selected training pixels.
23. The arrangement as recited in claim 22, further comprising:
calculation means for calculating a probability that a pixel of the image frame belongs to a skin color class as established by the skin-color model;
determination means for determining if the calculated probability of the pixel exceeds a predetermined skin pixel probability threshold; and
addition means for adding the pixel to a set of skin pixels, which establish the detected skin portion, in accordance with the determination of the determination means.
24. The arrangement as recited in claim 18, wherein the arrangement comprises at least one of (i) one or more processor-accessible media or (ii) at least one device.
25. A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon for execution by a processor to perform a method comprising:
correcting an exposure level of an image frame; and
enhancing a contrast amount of the image frame using a ratio of contrast amount control variable values and an exposure-density function.
26. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the correcting and the enhancing are performed partially or fully simultaneously.
27. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the correcting and the enhancing are effectuated using at least one lookup table.
28. The computer-readable medium of claim 27, wherein the correcting and the enhancing are effectuated using at least three lookup tables; and wherein a first and a second lookup table of the at least three lookup tables are created offline, and a third lookup table of the at least three lookup tables is established at runtime.
29. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the correcting comnprises:
calculating a difference between an ideal exposure level and an average luminance value for a region of the image frame; and
re-exposing each pixel of the image frame responsive to the calculated difference.
30. The computer-readable medium of claim 29, further comprising:
skipping the re-exposing and the enhancing when the average luminance value for the region of the image frame is relatively close to the ideal exposure level.
31. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the enhancing a contrast amount of the image frame comprises:
converting a first pixel value from the image frame to a corresponding light intensity using a first contrast amount control variable value; and
reconverting the corresponding light intensity or a derivative thereof to a second pixel value for the image frame using a second contrast amount control variable value;
wherein the first contrast amount control variable value and the second contrast amount control variable value comprise the ratio of contrast amount control variable values.
32. The computer-readable medium of claim 31, wherein the correcting an exposure level of an image frame comprises:
calculating a difference between an ideal exposure level and an average luminance value for a region of the image frame; and the reconverting the derivative of the corresponding light intensity to the second pixel value for the image frame comprises:
reconverting the derivative of the corresponding light intensity to the second pixel value for the image frame using the second contrast amount control variable value;
wherein the derivative of the corresponding light intensity is produced using the calculated difference.
33. The computer-readable medium of claim 32, wherein the correcting and the enhancing are performed using a lookup table that is produced at runtime and that incorporates the calculated difference, and wherein the lookup table maps the first pixel value to the second pixel value.
34. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, further comprising:
detecting a skin portion of the image frame using a skin-color model; wherein the correcting an exposure level of an image frame comprises:
calculating a difference between an ideal exposure level and an average luminance value for the detected skin portion of the image frame; and
re-exposing each pixel of the image frame responsive to the calculated difference.
35. The computer-readable medium of claim 34, further comprising: building the skin-color model during runtime.
36. The computer-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the building the skin-color model during runtime comprises:
selecting training pixels from the image frame based on a skin color range that is defined offline; and
building the skin-color model using the selected training pixels.
37. A method comprising:
building a skin-color model using, selected training pixels;
detecting a facial portion of an image frame using the skin-color model and a skin pixel probability threshold;
correcting an exposure level of the image frame with regard to the detected facial portion; and
enhancing a contrast amount of the image frame by re-exposing pixels of the image frame with a first contrast amount control variable value and a second contrast amount control variable value.
38. The method as recited in claim 37, further comprising:
selecting the selected training pixels from the image frame based on a predefined skin color range, the predefined skin color range created offline.
39. The method as recited in claim 37, wherein the enhancing comprises:
converting first pixel values from the image frame to corresponding light intensities using the first contrast amount control variable value; and
reconverting the corresponding light intensities or derivatives thereof to second pixel values for the image frame using the second contrast amount control variable value;
wherein the converting and the reconverting are effectuated, at least partially, using an exposure-density function.