Concurrent image processing for generating an output image
View Patent ↗Embodiments of the present application automatically utilize parallel image captures in an image processing pipeline. In one embodiment, image processing circuitry concurrently receives first image data to be processed and second image data to be processed, wherein the second image data is processed to aid in enhancement of the first image data.
1. An image capture device, comprising:
a hardware processor; and
an image processing circuitry that concurrently receives first image data to be processed and second image data to be processed, wherein:
the second image data is processed to aid in enhancement of the first image data;
the image processing circuitry comprises an imaging pipeline for processing a plurality of image data captured from at least one image sensor;
the imaging pipeline features two parallel paths for processing the plurality of image data;
the first image data is processed at full-resolution on a first parallel path and the second image data is processed at a down-scaled resolution on a second parallel path; and
the second parallel path comprises a hardware pipeline that extracts data used in decoding the first image data with the first parallel path, wherein the second parallel path is shut down after passing extracted data to the first parallel path without storing the extracted data in memory, wherein the first parallel path comprises a hardware pipeline.
2. The image capture device of claim 1 , wherein the first image data comprises video.
3. The image capture device of claim 1 , wherein the first image data is captured by a first image sensor of the image capture device and the second image data is captured by a second image sensor of the image capture device.
4. The image capture device of claim 1 , further comprising:
a viewfinder display that displays output of the second image data from the image processing circuitry before completion of processing of the first image data by the image processing circuitry.
5. The image capture device of claim 1 , wherein the enhancement of the first image data comprises at least one of noise filtering, dynamic range optimization, or high dynamic range imaging.
6. The image capture device of claim 1 , wherein the second image data is generated during processing of the first image data.
7. The image capture device of claim 1 , wherein the enhancement of the first image data comprises object or facial recognition.
8. The image capture device of claim 1 , wherein an imaging format of the first imaging data is different from an imaging format of the second imaging data.
9. The image capture device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one image sensor comprises:
a first image sensor that recorded the first image data; and
a second image sensor that recorded the second image data.
10. The image capture device of claim 1 , wherein the image processing circuitry is operable to generate an output bitstream comprising encoded layers of the first image data and the second image data.
11. An image processing method, comprising:
receiving a first image data to be processed and a second image data to be concurrently processed; and
processing the second image data to aid in enhancement of the first image data, wherein:
the first image data and the second image data are processed in parallel pipeline paths, the first image data being processed at full-resolution on a first parallel path and the second image data being processed at a down-scaled resolution on a second parallel path;
the first parallel path comprises a hardware pipeline;
the second parallel path comprises a hardware pipeline that extracts data used in decoding the first image data with the first parallel path; and
the second parallel path is shut down after passing extracted data to the first parallel path without storing the extracted data in memory.
12. The image processing method of claim 11 , wherein the first image data comprises video.
13. The image processing method of claim 12 , further comprising:
displaying output of the second image data from the second parallel path before completion of processing of the first image data at the first parallel path.
14. The image processing method of claim 11 , further comprising:
capturing the first image data with a first image sensor; and
concurrently capturing the second image data with a second image sensor.
15. The image processing method of claim 14 , further comprising:
generating an output bitstream comprising encoded layers of the first image data and the second image data.
16. The image processing method of claim 11 , wherein the enhancement of the first image data comprises at least one of noise filtering, and dynamic range optimization, or high dynamic range imaging.
17. The image processing method of claim 11 , wherein the second image data is generated during processing of the first image data.
18. The image processing method of claim 11 , wherein the enhancement of the first image data comprises object or facial recognition.
19. The image processing method of claim 11 , wherein an imaging format of the first imaging data is different from an imaging format of the second imaging data.
20. An image processing method comprising:
capturing first image data with a first image sensor;
downscaling the first image data to produce second image data;
receiving the first image data to be processed and the second image data to be concurrently processed;
processing the second image data to aid in enhancement of the first image data,
wherein the first image data and the second image data are processed in parallel pipeline paths, wherein the first image data is processed at full-resolution on a first parallel path and the second image data is processed at a down-scaled resolution on a second parallel path,
wherein the first image data is processed and encoded using data extracted from processing of the second image data; and
deleting the second image data and extracted data after encoding the first image data.
21. The image processing method of claim 20 , wherein the first image data comprises video.
22. The image processing method of claim 20 , further comprising displaying an output of the second image data from the second parallel path before completion of processing of processing of the first image data at the first parallel path.
23. The image processing method of claim 20 , wherein the enhancement of the first image data comprises at least one of noise filtering, and dynamic range optimization, or high dynamic range imaging.
24. The image processing method of claim 20 , wherein the second image data is generated during processing of the first image data.
25. The image processing method of claim 20 , wherein the second image data is not derived from a same original source as the first image data.
26. The image processing method of claim 20 , wherein an imaging format of the first imaging data is different from an imaging format of the second imaging data.