Granted Patent B2

US 12,332,439 · App. 18/337,258 · Granted Jun 17, 2025

Inventor: Jean Mayrand (Chambly, CA)

Assignee: 3649954 Canada Inc.

G02B27/017G06F3/011G06V40/20H04N23/69H04N23/698G02B2027/0138

Abstract

Claims (112)

1. A method of video-content filtering for selective dissemination comprising:

acquiring a panoramic signal organized into indexed frames;

generating a display of the panoramic signal;

initializing a pivotal gaze position and a pivotal frame index as default values, and a gaze count to equal zero;

detecting gaze positions at regular time intervals;

measuring durations of visual fixations of a viewer of the display based on detecting the viewer's gaze positions;

for each visual fixation attaining a prescribed duration threshold:

determining a respective pivotal gaze position;

extracting a segment of the panoramic signal corresponding to a view region, of prescribed shape and dimensions, surrounding the respective pivotal gaze position; and

transmitting said segment to an information-dissemination facility.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said acquiring comprises performing, at an acquisition module, processes of:

receiving a source signal from a panoramic signal source;

detecting a baseband signal from the source signal; and

producing said panoramic signal from the baseband signal.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein said acquiring comprises one of:

determining indices of individual frames from said baseband signal, subject to an indication that said source signal contains frame indices; and

inserting a cyclical frame index into content of each frame to produce said frame-indexed frames.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein said generating comprises supplying said panoramic signal to a virtual-reality headset, at a content controller, configured to detect gaze positions of an operator wearing the virtual-reality headset.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein said measuring comprises counting successive adjacent detected gaze positions where pairwise displacement of any pair of gaze-positions is within a predefined proximity threshold.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said determining comprises recurrently performing processes of:

detecting a current gaze position at a current frame index;

evaluating a displacement of the current gaze position from the pivotal gaze position;

subject to establishing that the displacement exceeds a prescribed proximity threshold, setting:

the pivotal gaze position to equal the current gaze position;

the pivotal frame index to equal the current frame index;

and

the gaze count to equal 1;

subject to establishing that the displacement does not exceed the prescribed proximity threshold, increasing the gaze count by unity; and

where the gaze count equals a prescribed count performing said extracting based on said pivotal gaze position and pivotal frame index.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising defining, at a view adaptor, a view boundary of said view region surrounding said respective pivotal gaze position.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said extracting comprises:

cyclically supplying contents of successive frames of said panoramic signal to a plurality of content-filtering units operating concurrently, to produce individual content-filtered frames according to said view boundary, so that each content-filtering unit processes one frame at a time; and

cyclically concatenating said individual content-filtering frames for transmission.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein each said content-filtering unit performs processes of:

retaining pixels within said view boundary of each frame of said successive frames to produce frame segments of interest;

reframing said frame segments according to a specified frame format; and

optionally, compressing said content-filtered frames.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the plurality of content-filtering units comprises at least a number, N, of content filtering units, determined as a ratio of evaluated processing time per frame per content-filtering unit to a frame duration.

11. The method of claim 4 wherein said extracting comprises performing, at a view adaptor collocated with the content controller, processes of:

repeatedly:

receiving, from said acquisition module, frame-indexed content data; and

placing said frame-indexed content data in a circular content buffer;

repeatedly:

receiving, from said content controller, a pivotal gaze position and a respective pivotal frame index; and

directing said respective pivotal frame index to a view-region-definition module and a memory controller of said circular content buffer;

accessing said circular content buffer to read respective content data corresponding to said respective frame index;

receiving a view-region definition from the view-region-definition module; and

supplying said respective content data and view-region definition to a content filter.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising provisioning said circular content buffer to store frame content data extracted from the panoramic signal over a moving time window spanning an integer number, ϕ, of frames determined as:

ϕ=(κ min ×ν)+1,

κ min being a prescribed threshold of visual-fixation count κ, and ν being a predefined inter-gaze number of frames.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein said acquiring comprises performing at each of a first acquisition module collocated with a content controller and a second acquisition module collocated with a view adaptor, processes of:

receiving a source signal from a panoramic signal source;

detecting a baseband signal from the source signal; and

producing said panoramic signal, from the baseband signal, said panoramic signal comprising frame-indexed content indexed as source.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein said extracting comprises performing, at a view adaptor, processes of:

repeatedly:

receiving, from said second acquisition module, frame-indexed content data; and

placing said frame-indexed content data in a circular content buffer;

repeatedly:

receiving, from said content controller, a pivotal gaze position and a respective frame index; and

storing said pivotal gaze position and respective frame index in a circular control buffer;

repeatedly:

sequentially reading stored pivotal gaze position and a respective frame index from said circular control buffer; and

directing said respective frame index to a view-region-definition module and a memory controller of said circular content buffer;

accessing said circular content buffer to read respective content data corresponding to said respective frame index;

receiving a view-region definition from the view-region-definition module; and

supplying said respective content data and view-region definition to a content filter.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising provisioning said circular content buffer to store frame content data extracted from the panoramic signal over a moving time window spanning an integer number, Φ, of frames, where:

Φ=┌(κ min ×ν)+((Δ 1 +Δ 3 −Δ 2 )/ f t )+1┐, wherein

κ min is a prescribed threshold of visual-fixation count κ, ν is a predefined inter-gaze number of frames, f t is a frame duration, Δ 1 is a transfer delay of said source signal from the panoramic signal source to the content controller, Δ 2 is a transfer delay of said source signal from the panoramic signal source to the view adaptor, Δ 3 is a transfer delay of said pivotal gaze positions from the content controller to the view adaptor.

16. An apparatus for content-filtering of video signals comprising:

an acquisition module configured to receive a modulated carrier from a panoramic signal source and generate a baseband panoramic signal organized into indexed frames;

a content controller comprising:

a device for producing a panoramic display of the baseband panoramic signal; and

a refresh module configured to measure durations of visual fixations of a viewer of the panoramic display, based on detecting the viewer's gaze positions, and determine a pivotal gaze position and a respective pivotal frame index for each visual fixation attaining a prescribed duration threshold;

and

a view adaptor comprising:

a module for computing a boundary of a view region, of prescribed shape and dimensions, surrounding said pivotal gaze position; and

an array of content-filtering units operating concurrently to extract segments, corresponding to the view region, of specific frames of the baseband panoramic signal starting with a frame of said respective pivotal frame index and ending upon determining a new pivotal frame index of a subsequent pivotal gaze position.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein each said content-filtering unit is configured to reframe said segments according to a specified frame format to produce filtered frames; and

optionally, compress said filtered frames.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 further comprising:

a circular content buffer holding content data of the baseband panoramic signal over a moving time window spanning a predefined number of frame periods;

a first cyclical-access mechanism for sequentially transferring said specific frames of the baseband panoramic signal to individual content-filtering units of the array of content-filtering units; and

a second cyclical-access mechanism for sequentially transferring said filtered frames to a respective destination.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein said circular content buffer is provisioned to store frame content data extracted from the baseband panoramic signal over a moving time window spanning an integer number, ϕ, of frames determined as:

ϕ=(κ min ×ν)+1,

wherein:

κ min is a count of successive adjacent gaze positions within said prescribed duration threshold, where pairwise displacement of any pair of gaze-positions is within a predefined proximity threshold; and

ν is a predefined inter-gaze number of frames.

20. A system for content-filtering of video signals comprising:

a first acquisition module configured to receive a modulated carrier from a panoramic signal source and generate a baseband panoramic signal organized into indexed frames;

a content controller, collocated with the first acquisition module, comprising:

a device for producing a panoramic display of the baseband panoramic signal; and

a refresh module configured to measure durations of visual fixations of a viewer of the panoramic display, based on detecting the viewer's gaze positions, and determine a pivotal gaze position and a respective pivotal frame index for each visual fixation attaining a prescribed duration threshold;

a repeater for retransmitting the modulated carrier received at the first acquisition module to a second acquisition module configured to generate a replica of said baseband panoramic signal;

and

a view adaptor comprising:

a module for computing a boundary of a view region, of prescribed shape and dimensions, surrounding said pivotal gaze position; and

an array of content-filtering units operating concurrently to extract segments, corresponding to the view region, of specific frames of the replica of said baseband panoramic signal starting with a frame of said respective pivotal frame index and ending upon determining a new pivotal frame index of a subsequent pivotal gaze position.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein each said content-filtering unit is configured to

reframe segments according to a specified frame format to produce filtered frames; and

optionally, compress said filtered frames.

22. The system of claim 21 further comprising:

a circular content buffer holding content data of the replica of the baseband panoramic signal over a moving time window spanning a predefined number of frame periods;

a first cyclical-access mechanism for sequentially transferring said specific frames of the baseband panoramic signal to individual content-filtering units of the array of content-filtering units; and

a second cyclical-access mechanism for sequentially transferring said filtered frames to a respective destination.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein said circular content buffer is provisioned to store frame content data extracted from the baseband panoramic signal over a moving time window spanning an integer number, ϕ*, of frames determined as:

ϕ*=┌(κ min ×ν)+((Δ 1 +Δ 3 −Δ 2 )/ f t )+1┐,

wherein:

κ min is a count of successive adjacent gaze positions within said prescribed duration threshold, where pairwise displacement of any pair of gaze-positions is within a predefined proximity threshold; ν is a predefined inter-gaze number of frames, f t is a frame duration, Δ 3 is a transfer delay of said pivotal gaze positions from the content controller to the view adaptor, and Δ 4 is a transfer delay from said repeater to the view adaptor.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (9)

References Cited (129)