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 § 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.
Claims 1-2, 11-12 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Petersen (US 2019/0108657) in view of Sommer et al. (Gradient-SDF: A Semi-Implicit Surface Representation for 3D Reconstruction, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2021).
Regarding claim 1, Petersen discloses a method for rendering an image (Petersen, [0042], “The approximated source image 108, by way of a suitably-configured user interface, is rendered on a display device of the computing device 102”. Fig. 9), comprising:
obtaining respective distance field information of a plurality of image areas in an image of a target object (Petersen, [0029], “A signed distance field is an image where each pixel is defined to encode a distance from the pixel itself to the nearest pixel that is of an opposite type”. In addition, in paragraph [0054], “A source image 106 is received and processed to provide an approximated source image 108”. Pixels can be grouped into image areas), each image area of the plurality of image areas being defined by a plurality of sampling points (Petersen, [0029], “a signed distance field provides a quick way of looking up how far it is from any given pixel to the inside. Thus, if a pixel is “outside”, it may contain “+10” if it is 10 pixels away from an “inside” pixel”. Pixel is considered sampling points), and the distance field information of the image area comprising respective distance field values (Petersen, [0029], “A signed distance field is an image where each pixel is defined to encode a distance from the pixel itself to the nearest pixel that is of an opposite type…if a pixel is “inside” it may contain “−10” if it is 10 pixels away from an “outside” pixel. The signed (i.e. “+” or “−”) distance field thus provides an image where the outline of the “inside” versus the “outside” or “boundary” is where the signed distance equals “0”. Thus, the boundary is maintained when the image is reduced which, in turn, continues to provide a hard edge which is retained during image reduction”);
determining, based on the respective distance field information, a target image area in the plurality of image areas, a boundary of the target object being located at least partially within the target image area (Petersen, [0029], “if a pixel is “inside” it may contain “−10” if it is 10 pixels away from an “outside” pixel. The signed (i.e. “+” or “−”) distance field thus provides an image where the outline of the “inside” versus the “outside” or “boundary” is where the signed distance equals “0””. Boundary of the object is located at positions where the sign of distance filed changes);
determining, based on the distance field information of the target image area, a distance field value of a target point in the target image area relative to the target object (Petersen, [0099], “the bilinear filtering (i.e. interpolation) performed in the down sampling process used these SDF values in the interpolation process to result in bilinear curves along these boundaries, thus resulting in a reduced image”. The distance field value of the target point is determined by interpolating (bilinear filtering) the signed distance field values of neighboring values); and
rendering the target image area on a display interface based on the distance field value of the target point (Petersen, [0045], “render images and video according to the techniques described herein”).
While Petersen teaches the plurality of sampling points relative to the target object (Petersen, [0029], “A weighted average of the attributes (color, transparency, etc.) of the four surrounding texels (i.e., texture pixels) is computed and applied to the screen pixel. This process is repeated for pixels forming the object being textured”); Petersen does not expressly disclose “distance field changes”;
Sommer et al. (hereinafter Sommer) discloses distance field changes (Sommer, Fig. 1 illustrates signed distance field as well as its gradient vector field).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify distance field information of Petersen to include the gradient vector field as taught by Sommer. The motivation for doing so would have been improving boundary direction determination accuracy.
Regarding claim 2, Petersen discloses determining a group of target sampling points from the plurality of target sampling points (Petersen, [0029], “Bilinear interpolation considers the closest 2×2 neighborhood of known pixel values surrounding the unknown pixel's computed location”); and
determining the distance field value of the target point based on the respective distance field values (Petersen, [0029], “if a pixel is “outside”, it may contain “+10” if it is 10 pixels away from an “inside” pixel. Likewise, if a pixel is “inside” it may contain “−10” if it is 10 pixels away from an “outside” pixel. The signed (i.e. “+” or “−”) distance field thus provides an image where the outline of the “inside” versus the “outside” or “boundary” is where the signed distance equals “0””) and
Petersen as modified by Sommer with the same motivation from claim1 discloses the respective distance field changes (Sommer, Fig. 1 illustrates signed distance field as well as its gradient vector field).
Regarding claim 11, Petersen discloses an electronic device (Petersen, [0040], “The computing device 102, for instance, may be configured as a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a mobile device (e.g., assuming a handheld configuration such as a tablet or mobile phone as illustrated)”), comprising:
at least one processing unit (Petersen, [0045], “The GPU 112 is configured to render images and video according to the techniques described herein. The GPU 112, also referred to herein as a graphics processor, may comprise a dedicated graphics rendering device associated with a computer system”); and
at least one memory coupled to the at least one processing unit and storing instructions for execution by the at least one processing unit, the instructions, when executed by the at least one processing unit (Petersen, [0058], “the GPU 112 may include internal memory 208. The GPU memory 208, also referred to herein as “video memory” or “VRAM,” may comprise random-access memory (RAM) which is accessible to other GPU components. The GPU memory 208 may be used in some embodiments to store various types of data and instructions such as input data, output data, intermediate data, program instructions for performing various tasks”), causing the electronic device to implement acts (Petersen, [0027], “FIG. 10 illustrates an example system including various components of an example device that can be implemented as any type of computing device as described and/or utilize with reference to FIGS. 1-9 to implement embodiments of the techniques described herein”).
The limitations recite in claim 11 are similar in scope to the method recited in claim 1 and therefore are rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 12, claim 12 recites functions that are similar in scope to the method steps recited in claim 2 and therefore are rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 20, Petersen discloses a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a computer program thereon, wherein the computer program is executable by a processor to implement acts (Petersen, [0045], “The GPU 112 is configured to render images and video according to the techniques described herein. The GPU 112, also referred to herein as a graphics processor, may comprise a dedicated graphics rendering device associated with a computer system”. In addition, in paragraph [0117], ““Computer-readable signal media” may refer to a signal-bearing medium that is configured to transmit instructions to the hardware of the computing device 1002, such as via a network”).
The limitations recite in claim 20 are similar in scope to the method recited in claim 1 and therefore are rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 10 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Petersen (US 2019/0108657) in view of Sommer et al., as applied to claim 1, in further view of Sato et al. (A GRADIENT MAGNITUDE BASED REGION GROWING ALGORITHM FOR ACCURATE SEGMENTATION, IEEE, 2000).
Regarding claim 10, Petersen discloses for each image area in the plurality of image areas (Petersen, Fig. 1 illustrates source image 106 including each image area in the plurality of image areas), in response to the respective distance field values of the plurality of sampling points for defining the image area (Petersen, [0029], “A signed distance field is an image where each pixel is defined to encode a distance from the pixel itself to the nearest pixel that is of an opposite type”), determining the image area as the target image area (Petersen, [0029], “The signed (i.e. “+” or “−”) distance field thus provides an image where the outline of the “inside” versus the “outside” or “boundary” is where the signed distance equals “0””);
Petersen as modified by Sommer does not expressly disclose “being all less than a predetermined value”;
Sato discloses being all less than a predetermined value (Sato, 2 The gradient magnitude based region growing algorithm, [0002], “we approximately determine the gas inside the colon with intensity values lower than a threshold T”);
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the target area determination of Petersen to include the concept of determining image region based on whether values are below a threshold, as taught by Sato. The motivation for doing so would have been improving the accuracy of region based computation.
Regarding claim 19, claim 19 recites functions that are similar in scope to the method steps recited in claim 10 and therefore are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-9 and 13-18 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE ZHAI whose telephone number is (571)270-3740. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ke Xiao can be reached at (571) 272 - 7776. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KYLE ZHAI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2611
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