1. A personal radiation detector comprising:
at least one ionizing radiation scintillation sensor for generating analog impulses representative of a detected radiation in an environment;
a converter connected to the sensor for converting the impulses to digital signals;
a microcontroller connected to the converter to receive the digital signals therefrom;
a nonvolatile memory connected to the microcontroller for data arrangement and command set,
an alarm device connected to the microcontroller for emitting warning signal in response to the detected radiation exceeding a preset level;
a power supply connected to the microcontroller for energizing the microcontroller;
a housing enclosing the sensor, the converter, the memory, the microcontroller, and the power supply, the housing having a form factor that substantially fits in a human palm; and
an interface for connecting the microcontroller with a computer,
wherein the detector can operate autonomously and without being connected to the computer, and
wherein, when connected to the computer, the detector acts as a plug-and-play device.
2. The personal radiation detector of claim 1, wherein the interface is one of a USB port and a PCMCIA interface.
3. The personal radiation detector of claim 1, wherein the nonvolatile memory is split into a first memory for storing computer files, which functions as a flash drive, and a second protected memory.
4. The personal radiation detector of claim 3, wherein the nonvolatile memory has a stored command for accessing the second protected memory.
5. The personal radiation detector of claim 3, wherein the second protected memory is characterized in being accessible from a computer connected to the interface.
6. The personal radiation detector of claim 3, wherein the second protected memory is organized in the form of automatically measured values array and supplied with sample time marks.
7. The detector of claim 3, further comprising a USB connector for directly connecting the detector to the computer.
8. The personal radiation detector of claim 1, further comprising a module with a GPS receiver, and wherein the second protected nonvolatile memory is organized in the form of automatically measured values array and supplied with sample time and location checks read out from the GPS receiver.
9. The personal radiation detector of claim 1, further comprising a module for the registration of the measured radiation energy distribution and the second protected nonvolatile memory is organized in the form automatically measured values array.
10. The personal radiation detector of claim 1, wherein the nonvolatile memory has a command set stored therein for automatically transmitting automatically measured values array and time and location checks to a computer memory upon connection to the computer.
11. The personal radiation detector of claim 10, wherein the command set contains commands of user identification.
12. The personal radiation detector as set forth in claim 10 wherein the command set is automatically updated in response to communication with a computer.
13. The detector of claim 1, wherein the housing further includes a display indicating the detected radiation.
14. The detector of claim 1, wherein the radioisotope identification is performed by a service located on an Internet server, based on the detected radiation.
15. The detector of claim 1, further comprising a USB connector for directly connecting the detector to the computer.
16. A method of operation of a personal radiation detector comprising the steps of:
constantly detecting an environment contamination level using a scintillation sensor;
constantly calculating an ionizing radiation level of the detected contamination level;
issuing a warning in response to the ionizing radiation level exceeding a preset level;
periodically recording records of the calculated ionizing radiation levels at predetermined periodic recording times;
issuing an alert signal and storing the current value in response to one of a current value and an accumulated value of the ionizing radiation level exceeding an established criterion level without waiting for a periodic recording time; and
automatically transferring the stored data to a computer for processing of the data for identification and saving,
wherein the transfer of the stored data occurs upon connection of a detector to the computer, the detector being configured as a plug-and-play device.
17. The method of claim 16, further comprising the step of storing a measured irradiation energy spectrum.
18. The method of claim 16, wherein the alert signal is in the form of at least one of light, sound and vibration.
19. The method of claim 16, further comprising the steps of identifying a user in response to connection of the personal radiation detector to a computer, updating a data base in a memory of the computer from a nonvolatile memory in the personal radiation detector and updating command sets in the nonvolatile memory of the personal radiation detector in response to connection of the personal radiation detector to a computer.
20. A palm-size personal radiation detector comprising:
an ionizing radiation scintillation sensor that detects radiation spectrum and produces signals corresponding to the spectrum;
a microcontroller capable of receiving the signals and analyzing the spectrum and the radioisotopes that emit the radiation;
a power supply connected to the microcontroller and to the radiation sensor;
a housing enclosing the sensor, the microcontroller, and the power supply, the housing having a form factor that substantially fits in a human palm;
a display on the housing showing information about the detected radiation, the display being controlled by the microprocessor; and
an interface for connecting the microcontroller to a computer,
wherein the personal radiation detector can operate without being connected to the computer, and
wherein, when connected to the computer, the detector acts as a plug-and-play device.
21. The detector of claim 20, further comprising a USB connector for directly connecting the detector to the computer.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
What is claimed is:
1. An image processing apparatus for dividing an input image into a plurality of tiles to process the image, comprising:
encoding means for subjecting individual tiles of the plurality of tiles to encoding processing on a per-bit-plane basis;
storage means for storing a code stream, which is encoded by said encoding means, tile by tile;
determination means for determining whether all code of tiles that have been encoded by said encoding means can be stored in said storage means when the code streams encoded by said encoding means are stored successively in said storage means; and
control means, responsive to a signal from said determination means indicating that all of the code cannot be stored, for executing control so as to substantially equally divide the amount of code that overflows said storage means and store the divided code in said storage means in an opposite direction from a storing start address of each of code areas of tiles, by distributing the divided code over the code areas of tiles that have already been stored and specifying the storing start address of each code area.
2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said control means includes:
first address generating means for generating addresses in a forward direction for storing code streams encoded by said encoding means in said storage means; and
second address generating means for generating addresses in a reverse direction for substantially equally dividing the amount of code that overflows said storage means and storing the divided code in said storage means by distributing the divided code over code areas of tiles that have already been stored;
wherein said substantially equally divided amounts of code is written over said code areas in the opposite direction from the storing start address.
3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said control means substantially equally divides the amount of code that overflows said storage means in accordance with the number of tiles, in a case where said determination means issues the signal indicating that all of the code cannot be stored.
4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said encoding means includes:
serial transformation means for applying a predetermined serial transformation to an input image signal;
quantization means for quantizing transformation coefficients, which are obtained by said sequence transformation means, to decompose the coefficients into bit planes; and
encoding means for encoding the bit planes, which have been quantized by said quantization means, in a direction extending from higher- to lower-order bit planes.
5. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein said serial transformation means includes discrete wavelet transformation means capable of outputting integral coefficients.
6. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising image region discriminating means for discriminating types of images of respective ones of the plurality of tiles;
wherein said encoding means changes a method of encoding a tile in accordance with the type of image thereof discriminated by said image region discriminating means.
7. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising image region discriminating means for discriminating types of images of respective ones of the plurality of tiles;
wherein in response to a signal from said determination means indicating that all of the code cannot be stored, said control means executes control so as to substantially equally divide the amount of code that overflows said storage means and stores the divided code in said storage means by distributing the divided code over code areas of tiles that have already been stored with the exception of code areas of tiles of specific images discriminated by said image region discriminating means.
8. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:
read-out means for reading out code that has been stored in said storage means; and
decoding means for decoding the code that has been read out by said read-out means.
9. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein said encoding means shifts coefficients, which have been generated by said sequence transformation means, a predetermined amount in the direction of higher-order bits based upon amount of code of each tile encoded by said encoding means.
10. An image processing method for dividing an input image into a plurality of tiles to process the image, comprising:
an encoding step of subjecting individual tiles of the plurality of tiles to encoding processing on a per-bit-plane basis;
a storage step of storing a code stream, which is encoded at said encoding step, tile by tile in a memory;
a determination step of determining whether all code of tiles that have been encoded at said encoding step can be stored in said memory when the code streams encoded at said encoding step are stored successively in said memory; and
a control step, responsive to a determination at said determination step that all of the code cannot be stored, of executing control so as to substantially equally divide the amount of code that overflows said memory and store the divided code in said memory in an opposite direction from a storing start address of each of code areas of tiles, by distributing the divided code over the code areas of tiles that have already been stored and specifying the storing start address of each code area.
11. The method according to claim 10, wherein said control step includes:
a first address generating step of generating addresses in a forward direction for storing code streams encoded at said encoding step in said memory; and
a second address generating step of generating addresses in a reverse direction for substantially equally dividing the amount of code that overflows said memory and storing the divided code in said memory by distributing the divided code over code areas of tiles that have already been stored;
said substantially equally divided amounts of code being written over the code areas starting in the opposite direction from the storing start address.
12. The method according to claim 10, wherein said control step substantially equally divides the amount of code that overflows said memory in accordance with the number of tiles, in a case where said determination step determines that all of the code cannot be stored.
13. The method according to claim 10, wherein said encoding step includes:
a serial transformation step of applying a predetermined serial transformation to an input image signal;
a quantization step of quantizing transformation coefficients, which are obtained at said sequence transformation step, to decompose the coefficients into bit planes; and
an encoding step of encoding the bit planes, which have been quantized at said quantization step, in a direction extending from higher- to lower-order bit planes.
14. The method according to claim 13, wherein said serial transformation step includes a discrete wavelet transformation capable of outputting integral coefficients.
15. The method according to claim 10, further comprising an image region discriminating step of discriminating types of images of respective ones of the plurality of tiles;
wherein said encoding step changes a method of encoding a tile in accordance with the type of image thereof discriminated at said image region discriminating step.
16. The method according to claim 10, further comprising an image region discriminating step of discriminating types of images of respective ones of the plurality of tiles;
wherein in response to a determination at said determination step that all of the code cannot be stored, said control step executes control so as to substantially equally divide the amount of code that overflows said memory and stores the divided code in said memory by distributing the divided code over code areas of tiles that have already been stored with the exception of code areas of tiles of specific images discriminated at said image region discriminating step.
17. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:
a read-out step of reading out code that has been stored in said memory; and
a decoding step of decoding the code that has been read out at said read-out step.
18. The method according to claim 13, wherein said encoding step shifts coefficients, which have been generated at said serial transformation step, a predetermined amount in the direction of higher-order bits based upon amount of code of each tile encoded at said encoding step.
19. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for executing an image processing method for dividing an input image into a plurality of tiles to process the image, comprising:
an encoding-step module for subjecting individual tiles of the plurality of tiles to encoding processing on a per-bit-plane basis;
a storage-step module for storing a code stream, which is encoded by said encoding-step module, tile by tile in a memory;
a determination-step module for determining whether all code of tiles that have been encoded by said encoding-step module can be stored in said memory when the code streams encoded by said encoding-step module are stored successively in said memory; and
a control-step module, responsive to a determination by said determination-step module that all of the code cannot be stored, for executing control so as to substantially equally divide the amount of code that overflows said memory and store the divided code in said memory by distributing the divided code over code areas of tiles that have already been stored.
20. An image processing apparatus for encoding a plurality of images and storing the processed images in a prescribed memory, comprising:
wavelet transformation means for wavelet-transforming input image data image by image;
encoding means for changing transformation coefficients, which have been obtained by said wavelet transformation means, to bit planes from higher- to lower-order bits, and encoding the bit planes in one bit plane unit;
storage control means for storing encoded data, which has been obtained by said encoding means, in a memory image by image;
determination means for determining whether all encoded data of each of the images that have been encoded by said encoding means can be stored in said memory when the encoded data obtained by said encoding means is stored successively in said memory; and
control means, responsive to a signal from said determination means indicating that all of the encoded data cannot be stored, for executing control so as to equally divide encoded data that overflows said memory and store the divided encoded data in said memory by writing the divided encoded data in an opposite direction from each of terminus addresses of storage areas of lower-order bit planes of each of the images.
21. The apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the plurality of images are images obtained by dividing one screen into a plurality of tiles.
22. The apparatus according to claim 20, wherein one image is an image corresponding to one screen.
23. An image processing method in an image processing apparatus for encoding a plurality of images and storing the processed images in a prescribed memory, comprising:
a wavelet transformation step of wavelet-transforming input image data image by image;
an encoding step of changing transformation coefficients, which have been obtained at said wavelet transformation step, to bit planes from higher- to lower-order bits, and encoding the bit planes in one bit plane unit;
a storage control step of storing encoded data, which has been obtained at said encoding step, in a memory image by image;
a determination step of determining whether all encoded data of each of the images that have been encoded by said encoding step can be stored in said memory when the encoded data obtained at said encoding step is stored successively in said memory; and
a control step, responsive to a determination at said determination that all of the encoded data cannot be stored, for executing control so as to equally divide encoded data that overflows said memory and store the divided encoded data in said memory by writing the divided encoded data in an opposite direction from a terminus address of each of storage areas of lower-order bit planes of each of the images.
24. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for executing an image processing method for encoding a plurality of images and storing the processed images in a prescribed memory, comprising:
a wavelet transformation step module for wavelet-transforming input image data image by image;
an encoding step module for changing transformation coefficients, which have been obtained by said wavelet transformation step module, to bit planes from higher- to lower-order bits, and encoding the bit planes in one bit plane unit;
a storage step module for storing encoded data, which has been obtained by said encoding step module, in a memory image by image;
a determination step module for determining whether all encoded data of each of the images that have been encoded by said encoding step module can be stored in said memory when the encoded data obtained by said encoding step module is stored successively in said memory; and
a control step module, responsive to determination by said determination step module indicating that all of the encoded data cannot be stored, for executing control so as to equally divide encoded data that overflows said memory and store the divided encoded data in said memory by writing the divided encoded data in an opposite direction from a terminus address of each of storage areas of lower-order bit planes of each of the images.
25. An image processing apparatus for encoding a plurality of images and storing the processed images in a prescribed memory, comprising:
wavelet transformation means for wavelet-transforming input image data image by image;
encoding means for changing transformation coefficients, which have been obtained by said wavelet transformation means, to bit planes from higher- to lower-order bits, and encoding the bit planes in one bit plane unit;
storage control means for storing, in a memory, encoded data, which corresponds to a plurality of images, obtained by said encoding means;
determination means for determining whether all encoded data obtained by said encoding means can be stored in said memory; and
control means, responsive to a signal from said determination means indicating that all of the encoded data cannot be stored, for executing control so as to invalidate bit planes uniformly from a terminus address of each of lower-order bit planes of each of the images.
26. The apparatus according to claim 25, wherein the plurality of images are images obtained by dividing one screen into a plurality of tiles.
27. The apparatus according to claim 25, wherein one image is an image corresponding to one screen.
28. An image processing method for encoding a plurality of images and storing the processed images in a prescribed memory, comprising:
a wavelet transformation step of wavelet-transforming input image data image by image;
an encoding step of changing transformation coefficients, which have been obtained at said wavelet transformation step, to bit planes from higher- to lower-order bits, and encoding the bit planes in one bit plane unit;
a storage control step of storing, in a memory, encoded data, which corresponds to a plurality of images, obtained at said encoding step;
a determination step of determining whether all encoded data obtained at said encoding step can be stored in said memory; and
a control step, responsive to a determination at said determination step indicating that all of the encoded data cannot be stored, of executing control so as to invalidate bit planes uniformly from a terminus address of each of lower-order bit planes of each of the images.
29. A computer-readable storage medium on which an image processing program, which is for encoding a plurality of images and storing the processed images in a prescribed memory, has been stored so as to be readable by a computer, said program comprising:
a wavelet transformation step of wavelet-transforming input image data image by image;
an encoding step of changing transformation coefficients, which have been obtained at said wavelet transformation step, to bit planes from higher- to lower-order bits, and encoding the bit planes in one bit plane unit;
a storage control step of storing, in a memory, encoded data, which corresponds to a plurality of images, obtained at said encoding step;
a determination step of determining whether all encoded data obtained at said encoding step can be stored in said memory; and
a control step, responsive to a determination at said determination step indicating that all of the encoded data cannot be stored, of executing control so as to invalidate bit planes uniformly from a terminus address of each of lower-order bit planes of each of the images.