DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-15 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 6, 9, 11 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kakinami et al (US20080137940).
Regarding claims 1, 6 and 11, Kakinami teaches a essential matrix generation apparatus comprising: at least one memory that is configured to store instructions; and at least one processor that is configured to execute the instructions to:
detect, from a first image and a second image, three or more feature point pairs that are pairs of feature points corresponding to each other;
(Kakinami, “a feature point detection means detecting feature points of an object image in the first image plane and the second image plane; a fundamental matrix determination means determining a fundamental matrix expressing a geometrically corresponding relationship, based on translational camera movement, between the first image plane and the second image plane, from not less than two pairs of feature points corresponding between the first image plane and the second image plane, on the basis of calculation of epipoles through auto-epipolar property”, [claim 1], “the fundamental matrix determination means generates temporary fundamental matrices”, [claim 5]; the system first detects feature points in two image planes (from different viewpoints); it then repeatedly selects at least two pairs of corresponding feature points (e.g., 4 pairs), and using assumptions such as pure translational motion and the auto-epipolar property to generate multiple temporary fundamental matrices (e.g., generated 2 temporary fundamental matrices from two differently selected 4-pair sets); these are not fully determined fundamental matrices constrained by motion characteristics; “Actual three-dimensional reconstruction is performed as follows: first, an essential matrix (also referred to as an “E-matrix” hereinafter) is computed using an internal parameter matrix A from the F-matrix”, [0039, 0048]; E-matrix is determined from the F-Matrix)
detect, for each of two or more of the feature point pairs, a derived point pair that is a pair of a point separated by a first distance in a first direction from a point on the first image included in the feature point pair and a point separated by a second distance in a second direction from a point on the second image included in the feature point pair; and
...,
wherein the first direction and the first distance are determined based on a feature value computed for the point on the first image included in the feature point pair, and
wherein the second direction and the second distance are determined based on a feature value computed for the point on the second image included in the feature point pair.
(Kakinami, “takes feature points in which the distance between a straight line connecting the feature points corresponding to one another in the first image plane and the second image plane and the epipole is less than or equal to a predetermined value as properly-corresponding feature points”, [claim 5]; for each generated temporary fundamental matrix (of 2 generated ones), the system evaluates all other detected feature points to identify/derive “properly-corresponding feature points”, defined as pairs whose epipolar lines (derived from the matrix) pass within a certain distance of the epipoles; the system counts the number of properly-corresponding feature points for each matrix; obviously, the other detected feature points may generally have different locations (distances) and directions than the two 4-pair feature points selected for generating temporary fundamental matrices)
Kakinami further teaches:
generate an essential matrix representing an epipolar constraint between a point on the first image and a point on the second image using each of the detected feature point pairs and the detected derived point pairs,
(Kakinami, “determines the temporary fundamental matrix in which the number of properly-corresponding feature points is greatest as an official fundamental matrix”, [claim 5]; one of the temporary matrices with the highest number of properly-corresponding feature points is selected as the final (official) fundamental matrix; thus the final fundamental matrix is determined based on a particular set of 4 pairs of feature points and other feature points qualified as properly-corresponding feature points selected above; obviously, after the F-matrix is determined, the corresponding E-matrix can be determined from the F-matrix, [0039, 0048])
Regarding claims 4, 9 and 14, Kakinami teaches its/their respective base claim(s).
Kakinami further teaches the essential matrix generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the essential matrix is repeatedly generated while changing the feature point pair used to detect the derived point pair, and an essential matrix with highest accuracy among a plurality of the generated essential matrices is output.
(Kakinami, see comments on claim 1; “The above processing is repeated for a set number of times while taking two pairs of corresponding points at random, so that an F-matrix in which the discrete values are maximum is determined to be the final F-matrix. With this algorithm, the F-matrix is computed while erroneous correspondence is eliminated in a stable manner”, [0013]; the final fundamental matrices may be the best feature points with highest accuracy; obviously, once the final best F-matrix is determined, the corresponding E-matrix can be determined accordingly, [0039, 0048])
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 2-3, 5, 7-8, 10, 12-13 and 15 is/are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening Claim(s).
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim(s) 2-3, 5, 7-8, 10, 12-13 and 15 recite(s) the limitation(s) to which no explicit teachings are found in the prior art cited in this office action and from the prior art search.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JIANXUN YANG whose telephone number is (571)272-9874. The examiner can normally be reached on MON-FRI: 8AM-5PM Pacific Time.
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/JIANXUN YANG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2662 9/30/2025