We claim:
1. Apparel to be worn by a person, comprising:
a panel, said panel including a display;
a control member generating signals for said display to form images thereon;
a memory coupled to said control member, said memory storing data defining images for said display; and
a securing member arranged to secure said panel on the body of said person.
2. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is integrally incorporated into said panel.
3. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is formed of a light emitting polymer.
4. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is constructed to show color images in response to said signals.
5. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said control member and said memory cooperate to generate a static image on said display.
6. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said control member and said memory cooperate to generate a dynamic image on said display.
7. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said memory is arranged to store several images, said apparel further comprising a selection member coupled to said control member to select one of said images for said display.
8. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said control member generates signals defining a monochromatic image on said display.
9. The apparel of claim 8 wherein said monochromatic image is a uniform color.
10. The apparel of claim 8 wherein said control member generates signals defining an image composed of alphanumeric characters.
11. The apparel of claim 10 wherein said control member generates an image having elements defining a predetermined pattern.
12. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is sized and arranged to be mounted on a vest.
13. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is sized and arranged to be mounted on a shirt.
14. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is sized and arranged to be mounted on a cap.
15. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is sized and arranged to be mounted on a tie.
16. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is sized and arranged to be mounted on a pair of suspenders.
17. The apparel of claim 1 wherein said display is sized and arranged to be mounted on a belt.
18. Apparel for a wearer comprising:
a clothing article constructed and arranged to be worn on the body of said wearer;
an electronic display associated with said clothing article;
a controller associated with said electronic display and having a memory holding data representative of at least one image; and
a control member coupled to said memory to receive said data and to generate signals for said electronic display to show said at least one image.
19. The apparel of claim 18 wherein said memory is replaceable to change said image.
20. The apparel of claim 18 wherein said memory is arranged to hold data representative of several images and wherein said controller includes an image selector for selecting one of said images to be displayed.
21. The apparel of claim 20 wherein said image selector includes a timer to generate a timing signal and wherein said display shows images in accordance with said timing signal.
22. The apparel of claim 20 wherein said controller and display cooperate to generate images including alphanumeric characters.
23. The apparel of claim 20 wherein said image selector includes a keyboard for identifying said at least one image.
24. The apparel of claim 18 wherein said display images are formed of alphanumeric characters.
25. The apparel of claim 18 further comprising a message selector cooperating with said controller to select a message formed of alphanumeric characters, said message being shown on said display.
26. The apparel of claim 25 wherein said message selector includes a keyboard for entering said alphanumeric characters.
27. The apparel of claim 25 wherein said message selector includes an interface receiving signals from an external device, said signals defining said message.
28. Apparatus for playing a war game comprising:
clothing constructed to be worn by a participant in said war game;
an electronic display formed on said clothing and arranged to show selectively one of a plurality of images;
a controller generating signals for said electronic display, said signals defining said images; and
a gun coupled to said controller, said gun generating a beam when activated by said participant.
29. The apparatus of claim 28 further comprising a sensor sensing hits on said participant from other participants.
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 method for video encoding, comprising:
performing a texture analysis of video scenes to identify areas of synthesizable textures;
encoding the video scenes and generating meta data for describing the areas identified and for describing the synthesizable textures using information on identified areas of synthesizable textures, and information on the textures of these areas; and
ensuring temporal consistency of recognizing synthesizable textures in a sequence of frames by means of a texture catalogue, by
storing the synthesizable textures of the identified areas of synthesizable textures in a first frame of the sequence in the texture catalogue in order to initialize same;
comparing the synthesizable textures of the identified areas of synthesizable textures in the following frames of the sequence with the synthesizable textures stored in the texture catalogue;
in the event of a match, assigning the respective synthesizable texture of an identified area of synthesizable texture among the following frames of the sequence to the respective synthesizable texture stored in the texture catalogue; and
in the event of no match, storing the respective synthesizable texture of an identified area of synthesizable texture among the following frames of the sequence in the texture catalogue.
2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein performing the texture analysis comprises subdividing frames into blocks using a multi-resolution quadtree.
3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the subdividing of a block is broken off if
the blocks resulting from the next subdivision step exhibit similar color andor texture properties as this block, or
the sizes of blocks of the next subdivision step fall short of a predefined value.
4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein blocks, the subdividing of which has been broken off because of similar color andor texture properties, are marked as homogeneous blocks, and the blocks which differ from the homogeneous blocks once the subdividing of the frame has been completed, are marked as non-classifiable blocks.
5. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein after the subdivision of a frame, a similarity assessment is performed for those blocks whose subdivision was broken off because of similar color andor texture properties, and wherein similar blocks are combined into synthesizable areas.
6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the similarity of blocks is assessed on the basis of MPEG-7 descriptors.
7. The method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the similarity of blocks is assessed on the basis of the MPEG-7 descriptors \u201cEdge Histogram\u201d texture descriptor (EH) andor \u201cSCalable Color\u201d descriptor (SCC).
8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the identified areas of synthesizable textures of a frame of a video sequence are matched with areas of synthesizable textures of preceding frames of the video sequence.
9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first and last frames (the so-called key frames) of a \u201cGroup of Frames\u201d (GoF) are encoded on the basis of a mean squared error method (MSE based), and intervening B frames comprising identified synthesizable areas are partially synthesized.
10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein synthesizable areas in the partially synthesized frames are adapted to corresponding texture areas in the key frames by suitable warping.
11. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the warping is performed by means of a planar perspective motion model described by the following equations:
x\u2032=(a1+a3x+a4y)(1+a7x+a8y)+x,
y\u2032=(a2+a5x+a6y)(1+a7x+a8y)+y,
wherein
(x, y) represent the coordinates of the starting point,
(x\u2032, y\u2032) represent the transformed coordinates of the starting point, and
a1, . . . , a8 represent model parameters.
12. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the warping causes the texture of the first or last frames of the current GoF to be warped in the direction of the synthesizable texture area identified, wherein each such texture area is associated a motion parameter set and a control parameter, the control parameter indicating whether the first or last frame of a GoF is used for texture synthesis.
13. The method as claimed in claim 12, wherein for texture synthesis, that frame of a GoF is used for which a smaller differential signal is determined between the synthesized and the original texture regions.
14. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the following are generated per texture area as meta data of areas with synthesizable textures:
a segmentation mask,
a motion parameter set, andor
a control parameter.
15. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising, at the decoder side, the steps of assessing the encoded data and meta data, and reconstructing the video scenes by synthetically generating textures for areas identified by assessing the meta data.
16. An apparatus for video encoding, comprising:
an analyzer for performing a texture analysis of video scenes to identify areas of synthesizable textures;
an encoder for encoding the video scenes and a generator for generating meta data for describing the areas identified and for describing the synthesizable textures using information on identified areas of synthesizable textures, and information on the textures of these areas; and
a unit for ensuring temporal consistency of recognizing synthesizable textures in a sequence of frames by means of a texture catalogue, by
storing the synthesizable textures of the identified areas of synthesizable textures in a first frame of the sequence in the texture catalogue in order to initialize same;
comparing the synthesizable textures of the identified areas of synthesizable textures in the following frames of the sequence with the synthesizable textures stored in the texture catalogue;
in the event of a match, assigning the respective synthesizable texture of an identified area of synthesizable texture among the following frames of the sequence to the respective synthesizable texture stored in the texture catalogue; and
in the event of no match, storing the respective synthesizable texture of an identified area of synthesizable texture among the following frames of the sequence in the texture catalogue.
17. A computer program enabling a computer, once it has been loaded into the computer’s memory, to perform a method as claimed in claim 1.
18. A computer-readable storage medium having a program stored thereon which enables the computer, once it has been loaded into the computer’s memory, to perform a method as claimed in claim 1.
19. A method for video encoding, comprising:
performing a texture analysis of video scenes to identify areas of synthesizable textures;
encoding the video scenes and generating meta data for describing the areas identified and for describing the synthesizable textures using information on identified areas of synthesizable textures, and information on the textures of these areas,
the step of generating the meta data comprising the step of estimating motion parameters describing a warping so as to adapt synthesizable areas in frames of a Group of Frames to corresponding texture areas in first or last frames of this group by means of the warping, the motion parameters being part of the meta data.
20. The method as claimed in claim 19, wherein performing the texture analysis comprises subdividing frames into blocks using a multi-resolution quadtree.
21. The method as claimed in claim 20, wherein the subdividing of a block is broken off if
the blocks resulting from the next subdivision step exhibit similar color andor texture properties as this block, or
the sizes of blocks of the next subdivision step fall short of a predefined value.
22. The method as claimed in claim 21, wherein blocks, the subdividing of which has been broken off because of similar color andor texture properties, are marked as homogeneous blocks, and the blocks which differ from the homogeneous blocks once the subdividing of the frame has been completed, are marked as non-classifiable blocks.
23. The method as claimed in claim 21, wherein after the subdivision of a frame, a similarity assessment is performed for those blocks whose subdivision was broken off because of similar color andor texture properties, and wherein similar blocks are combined into synthesizable areas.
24. The method as claimed in claim 23, wherein the similarity of blocks is assessed on the basis of MPEG-7 descriptors.
25. The method as claimed in claim 24, wherein the similarity of blocks is assessed on the basis of the MPEG-7 descriptors \u201cEdge Histogram\u201d texture descriptor (EH) andor \u201cSCalable Color\u201d descriptor (SCC).
26. The method as claimed in claim 19, wherein the identified areas of synthesizable textures of a frame of a video sequence are matched with areas of synthesizable textures of preceding frames of the video sequence.
27. The method as claimed in claim 19, wherein the first and last frames (the so-called key frames) of a \u201cGroup of Frames\u201d (GoF) are encoded on the basis of a mean squared error method (MSE based), and intervening B frames comprising identified synthesizable areas are partially synthesized.
28. The method as claimed in claim 27, wherein the temporal consistency of recognizing synthesizable textures of a Group of Frames (GoF) is ensured by means of a texture catalogue.
29. The method as claimed in claim 19, wherein the warping is performed by means of a planar perspective motion model described by the following equations:
x\u2032=(a1+a3x+a4y)(1+a7x+a8y)+x,
y\u2032=(a2+a5x+a6y)(1+a7x+a8y)+y,
wherein
(x, y) represent the coordinates of the starting point,
(x\u2032, y\u2032) represent the transformed coordinates of the starting point, and
a1, . . . , a8 represent model parameters.
30. The method as claimed in claim 29, wherein the warping causes the texture of the first or last frames of the current GoF to be warped in the direction of the synthesizable texture area identified, wherein each such texture area is associated a motion parameter set and a control parameter, the control parameter indicating whether the first or last frame of a GoF is used for texture synthesis.
31. The method as claimed in claim 30, wherein for texture synthesis, that frame of a GoF is used for which a smaller differential signal is determined between the synthesized and the original texture regions.
32. The method as claimed in claim 19, wherein the following are generated per texture area as meta data of areas with synthesizable textures:
a segmentation mask,
a motion parameter set, andor
a control parameter.
33. A method for video decoding, comprising:
assessing encoded data of video scenes and meta data for describing identified areas of synthesizable textures in the video scenes and for describing the synthesizable textures of these areas; and
reconstructing the video scenes by synthetically generating synthetically generated textures for the areas identified,
wherein the meta data comprise motion parameters describing a warping so as to adapt synthesizable areas in frames of a Group of Frames to corresponding texture areas in first or last frames of this group by means of the warping, and
wherein the step of reconstructing comprises the step of warping the corresponding texture areas in the first or last frames of the group in the direction of the adapted synthesizable areas in the frames of the Group of Frames using the motion parameters.
34. An assembly for video encoding, comprising:
an analyzer for performing a texture analysis of video scenes to identify areas of synthesizable textures;
an encoder for encoding the video scenes and a generator for generating meta data for describing the areas identified and for describing the synthesizable textures using information on identified areas of synthesizable textures, and information on the textures of these areas; and
the generator for generating the meta data being configured to estimate motion parameters describing a warping so as to adapt synthesizable areas in frames of a Group of Frames to corresponding texture areas in first or last frames of this group by means of the warping, the motion parameters being part of the meta data.
35. An assembly for video decoding, comprising:
an assessor for assessing encoded data of video scenes and meta data for describing identified areas of synthesizable textures in the video scenes and for describing the synthesizable textures of these areas; and
a reconstructor for reconstructing the video scenes by synthetically generating synthetically generated textures for the areas identified,
wherein the meta data comprise motion parameters describing a warping so as to adapt synthesizable areas in frames of a Group of Frames to corresponding texture areas in first or last frames of this group by means of the warping, and
wherein the reconstructor is configured to warp the corresponding texture areas in the first or last frames of the group in the direction of the adapted synthesizable areas in the frames of the Group of Frames using the motion parameters.
36. A computer program enabling a computer, once it has been loaded into the computer’s memory, to perform a method as claimed in claim 19.
37. A computer program enabling a computer, once it has been loaded into the computer’s memory, to perform a method as claimed in claim 33.
38. A computer-readable storage medium having a program stored thereon which enables the computer, once it has been loaded into the computer’s memory, to perform a method as claimed in claim 19.
39. A computer-readable storage medium having a program stored thereon which enables the computer, once it has been loaded into the computer’s memory, to perform a method as claimed in claim 33.