1. A device for filling and sealing packages for a machine for packaging products under a controlled atmosphere in containers to be sealed with a film; comprising:
a stationary upper part forming a bell and provided with a vertically movable welding head;
a vertically movable lower part forming a pan, the lower part being adapted for receiving at least one container to be sealed and interacting with the upper part so as to define a chamber around the container to be sealed a chamber;
an opening in the chamber, located above the container received inside the chamber for introducing in said chamber a continuous sealing film, said film being thereafter welded to the container by the welding head of the upper part;
means for closing off said opening and locking the sealing film;
means for establishing a controlled atmosphere inside the chamber;
first inserting and filling means emerging inside the chamber below said sealing film for introducing fluid products into said chamber for filling the container received inside the chamber;
second inserting and, filling means emerging inside the chamber below the first inserting and filling means and having a larger cross section than a cross section of said first inserting and filling means for introducing non-fluid products to be packaged into said chamber and for filling the container received inside in said chamber, before welding of the sealing film to the container;
a guide means mounted into said second inserting and filling means;
means for setting a controlled atmosphere within said guide means; and
mobile transfer means mounted for reciprocal translation within said guide means and provided with supporting means for said non-fluid products that allows to introduce said products into the chamber without disturbing the controlled atmosphere of the chamber.
2. The device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising means for advancing the sealing film in order to supply and accumulate an excess length of sealing film in the chamber and to take up the excess length when the welding head drops onto the container to be sealed.
3. The device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the opening for supplying the sealing film into the chamber is a through slot made in the upper part at a distance above the lower edge of the upper part.
4. The device as claimed in claim 3, further comprising actuation-controlled closing and locking means for closing off said slot and locking the film with respect to the upper part.
5. The device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising means for introducing or removing fluid that emerges into the chamber between the opening for supplying the sealing film and the inserting and filling means.
6. The device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the mobile transfer means is able to pivot or tilt.
7. The device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said guide means comprises at least one opening for loading the products into said mobile transfer means.
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 of skin tone detection comprising the steps of:
providing a gray scale representation of a pixel within an acquired image;
providing a representation for said pixel which is independent of red chrominance channel, wherein said representation which is independent of red chrominance channel is derived from the maximum of the G and B values for said pixel; and
determining whether a difference in value between said representations corresponds with a skin tone value.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method comprises deriving said gray scale representation I by transforming RGB values normalised to the interval 0,1 for said pixel as follows:
I=(R*a)+(G*b)+(B*c),
wherein 0.25<a<0.35, 0.5<b<0.7, and 0.05<c<0.16.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the step of determining one or more regions of skin tone in said image, each region comprising a plurality of contiguous pixels, each determined to have a value indicating the pixel has a skin tone.
4. A method of embedding data in an acquired image, the method comprising the steps of:
identifying one or more skin tone regions within said acquired image as claimed in claim 3; and
embedding said data into at least a portion of said skin tone regions of said image.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the step of embedding comprises embedding said data into a red chrominance channel of said image.
6. The method of claim 4, wherein said method comprises performing a DWT transform of said image data prior to said embedding.
7. The method of claim 4, wherein the method further comprises the step of encrypting said data prior to said embedding to provide a substantially chaotic data set.
8. The method of claim 4, wherein the method comprises the step of identifying within one of said skin tone regions a facial feature.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein said facial feature comprises a pair of eyes.
10. The method of claim 9, wherein the method comprises the step of determining an orientation of said skin tone region in accordance with the relative rotation of said eyes within said acquired image.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein said data comprises adding an indication of said orientation to said image.
12. A method of skin tone detection comprising the steps of:
providing a gray scale representation of a pixel within an acquired image;
providing a representation for said pixel which is independent of red chrominance channel; and
determining whether a difference in value between said representation corresponds with a skin tone value
wherein the determining comprises determining a skin tone value fskin(x,y) for a pixel as:
f
skin
\u2061
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x
,
y
)
=
{
1
iffT
L
<
e
\u2061
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x
,
y
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<
T
H
0
otherwise
where e(x,y)=I(x,y)\u2212\xce(x,y), I(x,y) denotes said gray scale representation of a pixel within an acquired image, \xce(x, y) denotes said representation for said pixel which is independent of red chrominance channel, and TL and TH are lower and upper threshold values, respectively.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein 0.02<TL<0.04 and 0.10<TH=<0.14.
14. The method of claim 12, wherein TL and TH are calculated such that:
\u03bc\u2212(\u0394left*\u03c3)=TI,
\u03bc+(\u0394right*\u03c3)=TH
wherein \u03bc is the mean of the frequency distribution of a series of pixels to be analysed, \u03c3 is the standard deviation of said frequency distribution, and \u0394left and \u0394right right are chosen to be those values 1 and 3 \u03c3 away from \u03bc respectively.
15. The method of claim 12, wherein TL=0.02511 and TH=0.1177.
16. A method of extracting data embedded in an image, the method comprising the steps of:
identifying one or more skin tone regions within said acquired image by:
providing a gray scale representation of a pixel within an acquired image;
providing a representation for said pixel which is independent of red chrominance channel, wherein said representation which is independent of red chrominance channel is derived from the maximum of the G and B values for said pixel; and
determining whether a difference in value between said representations corresponds with a skin tone value;
wherein the method further comprises the step of determining one or more regions of skin tone in said image, each region comprising a plurality of contiguous pixels, each determined to have a value indicating the pixel has a skin tone; and
extracting data from at least a portion of said skin tone regions of said image.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the method comprises:
identifying a relative rotation of a set of reference points within said acquired image;
obtaining an indication of the relative rotation of said reference points within said acquired image when said data was embedded; and
prior to said identifying, rotating said image so that said reference points conform to said indication.
18. A computer program product comprises a non-transitory computer readable medium on which computer instructions are stored which when executed in a computing device are arranged to perform the steps of:
providing a gray scale representation of a pixel within an acquired image; providing a representation for said pixel which is independent of red chrominance channel, wherein said representation which is independent of red chrominance channel is derived from the maximum of the G and B values for said pixel; and
determining whether a difference in value between said representations corresponds with a skin tone value.