Method and system for surface wear determination

1. A method for determining surface wear comprising:

capturing an image of an object surface via an input device;

detecting a surface pattern from the captured image;

identifying object data associated with the object surface based on the surface pattern and histogram data for the captured image; and

determining a surface wear value of the object surface based on the object data and the surface pattern, wherein a remaining tire life is calculated based on the surface wear value and a minimum tread life that is specified in the identified object data.

2. The method of claim 1 ,

wherein the identifying the object data includes retrieving the object data from a database based on the histogram data for the captured image, and

the determining the surface wear value includes measuring, via a host server, a current surface depth value of the object surface based the surface pattern and calculating, via the host server, the surface wear value based on the current depth value and the object data.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

storing information relating to a plurality of objects in the database, and

generating histogram data for each of the plurality of objects based on the stored information;

wherein the identifying the object data includes comparing the histogram data associated with the captured image with the histogram data associated with the plurality of objects.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of objects are tires and the object surface corresponds to the treading of a given tire.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

calculating a current tread depth of the given tire based on the surface pattern;

wherein the surface wear value is based on the current tread depth and an original tread depth value that is specified in the identified object data.

6. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

providing targeted marketing information to a user associated with the object surface based on the determined surface wear value.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the input device is attached to a vehicle so as to enable continuous monitoring of the tread wear value of a tire surface.

8. A system for surface wear determination comprising:

an input device to capture an image of an object surface;

a database to store information associated with a plurality of objects; and

a host server to:

analyze the captured image to identify a corresponding object from among the plurality of objects based on a detected surface pattern in the captured image and histogram data for the captured image, and

determine a surface wear value based on the surface pattern and the information that is associated with the corresponding object stored in the database, wherein a remaining tire life is calculated based on the surface wear value and a minimum tread life that is specified in the information that is associated with the corresponding object stored in the database.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the database stores marketing information associated with a plurality of vendors, and

wherein the host server provides relevant marketing information to a user associated with the input device based on the determined surface wear value.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the plurality of the objects are tires, the object surface corresponds to the treading of a given tire, and the surface pattern is a tire tread pattern.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the host server is to calculate a current tread depth of the given tire based on the surface pattern, and

wherein the surface wear value is based on the calculated current tread depth and an original depth value that is specified in the information that is associated with the corresponding object.

12. The system of claim 10 , wherein the host server is to determine the relevant marketing information based on the identity of the corresponding object tire identification and provide the relevant marketing information to the user when the surface value is less than a recommended value that is specified in the information that is associated with the corresponding object.

13. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored executable instructions, that when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

receive an image of a surface of a tire from an input device;

analyze the image to detect a tread pattern of the tire from histogram data for the image;

determine a current tread width of the tire based on the tread pattern and the tire information for the tire; and

calculate a tire wear value based on the current tread width and original depth information that is specified in the tire information for the tire, wherein a remaining tire life is calculated based on the tire wear value and a minimum tread life that is specified in the tire information for the tire.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the instructions are to further cause the processor to:

provide marketing information when the remaining life of the tire is within a predetermined range of a minimum tread value specified in the retrieved tire information associated with the identified tire.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13 ,

wherein to detect the tread pattern of the tire, the instructions are further to cause the processor to determine the histogram data for the image, and

wherein to retrieve the tire information for the tire, the instructions are further to cause the processor to select the tire information for the tire from among tire information associated with multiple types of tires by comparing the histogram data for the image to histogram data associated with the multiple types of tires.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13 ,

wherein the instructions are to further cause the processor to:

determine content of targeted marketing information to be sent to the input device based on the tire wear value.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13 ,

wherein the instructions are to further cause the processor to:

send targeted marketing information to the input device based on a determination that the tire wear value satisfies a thresholding criterion.