Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hao CN 113096051 (cited in the International search report for the PCT application, the English translation is relied upon in the description below).
Regarding claim 1, Hao disclose a system for aligning an image (see the abstract, correcting an image based on vanishing point detection, correcting is analogous to the aligning of the image as discussed in paragraphs 0002-0003 of the instant specification)
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, comprising: one or more processors ; and a memory coupled with the one or more processors, wherein the memory is configured to provide the one or more processors with instructions that when executed cause the one or more processors to implement operations comprising (Hao discloses an image processing device which inherently uses a processor with a memory): (a) receiving an image (see page 7 of the translation, figure 1 step 1 importing a shot picture )
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;(b) identifying a first vanishing point based on a plurality of nearly- horizontal lines in the image and a second vanishing point based on a plurality of nearly-vertical lines in the image, each nearly-horizontal line deviating from perfectly horizontal by at most a first angle, each nearly-vertical line deviating from perfectly vertical by at most a second angle (see pages 7-8, step 3 extracting a vertical line segment and a horizontal line segment from the line segment set L, and steps 4 and 5 extracting vertical vanishing points and horizontal vanishing points, the vertical determination angle is 15 degrees, and the horizontal determination angle is between 75 degress and 105 degrees from the vertical direction, i.e. also 15 degrees)
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;(c) identifying a homography based on the first vanishing point and the second vanishing point; and(d) transforming the image according to the homography to thereby create an aligned image wherein (see page 8, using the vertical and horizontal vanishing points obtained in steps 4 and 5 RANSAC is used to calculate a transformation matrix, transformation matrix here thus uses a homography based on the first and second vanishing points)
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:the plurality of nearly-horizontal lines is thereby transformed to a plurality of substantially horizontal lines, each substantially horizontal line deviating from perfectly horizontal by at most a third angle; and the plurality of nearly-vertical lines is thereby transformed to a plurality of substantially vertical lines, each substantially vertical line deviating from perfectly horizontal by at most a fourth angle (according to Hao after the transformation the two vanishing points are at infinity, i.e. the vertical and horizontal lines are as perfectly vertical and as perfectly horizontal as mathematically possible, see figure 5 for an example of the resulting image)
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Regarding claim 2, Hao discloses wherein the first angle and/or the second angle is at most 15 degrees (see above cited pages 7-8, step 3 extracting a vertical line segment and a horizontal line segment from the line segment set L, and steps 4 and 5 extracting vertical vanishing points and horizontal vanishing points, the vertical determination angle is 15 degrees, and the horizontal determination angle is between 75 degrees and 105 degrees from the vertical direction, i.e. also 15 degrees).
Regarding claim 3, Hao recites wherein the third angle and/or the fourth angle is at most 5 degrees (see above cited pages 7-8 if the angle is less than 5 degrees then c is in the same direction as A and B).
Regarding claim 4, Hao discloses wherein the memory is configured to provide the one or more processors with instructions that when executed cause the one or more processors to implement operations further comprising identifying the plurality of nearly-horizontal lines in the image and the plurality of nearly-vertical lines in the image (see above cited pages 7-8, step three extracting a vertical line segment set and a horizontal line segment set)
Regarding claim 5, Hao the memory is configured to provide the one or more processors with instructions that when executed cause the one or more processors to implement operations further comprising applying a line extraction procedure to identify the plurality of nearly-horizontal lines and the plurality of nearly-vertical lines (page 6 discloses a line segment detection algorithm is used for acquiring a straight line segment set L).
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Regarding claim 6, Hao discloses the line extraction procedure comprises one or more members selected from the group consisting of: a Hough transform, a progressive Hough transform, a line segment detector (LSD) procedure, a real-time LSD procedure, a fast line detector (FLD) procedure, a Cannylines procedure, a dynamic programming procedure, and a PPGNet procedure (see above cited section for claim 5, an LSD algorithm).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hao in view of Azuma US 2008/0310680
Regarding claim 7, as discussed above Hao discloses the limitations of claim 1, however Hao does not explicitly disclose using polar coordinates to determine the vanishing points. However it is well known to carry out a polar transformation in order to determine vanishing points as taught by Azuma.
Azuma discloses a vanishing point is determined by detecting peaks originating from a line that is obtained by a polar coordinate conversion (see paragraph 0010).
Hao and Azuma are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of determining vanishing points.
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Hao and Azuma to carry out a polar conversion on lines to detect the vanishing points as taught by Azuma. The motivation would be to utilize the benefits of polar coordinates.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hao in view of Kim et al. US 2018/0365858 (hereinafter “Kim”).
Regarding claim 11, as discussed above Hao discloses the limitations of claim 1.
Hao does not explicitly disclose identifying the vanishing points based on one or more of a group consisting of a yaw, pitch, or roll associated with a camera.
Kim discloses identifying vanishing points utilizing yaw, pitch, and roll associated with a camera (see paragraph 0016).
Hao and Kim are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of detecting vanishing points.
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Hao and Kim to identify the vanishing points based on yaw, pitch and roll of a camera. The motivation would be utilize the camera information in order calibrate the image.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-10, and 12-20 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 claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please see the attached 892 notice of references cited.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN B STREGE whose telephone number is (571)272-7457. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5 (PST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chan Park can be reached at (571)272-7409. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOHN B STREGE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2669