Television – Image signal processing circuitry specific to television – Special effects
Reexamination Certificate
1997-11-06
2001-10-09
Harvey, David E. (Department: 2614)
Television
Image signal processing circuitry specific to television
Special effects
C348S578000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06300983
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic kaleidoscopic apparatus which can supply picked-up image information with special image effects, particularly effects attained by a kaleidoscope.
2. Description of the Background Art
In general, a kaleidoscope which is employed as a toy or the like is in the form of a polygonal tube having a plurality of mirrors provided with inwardly directed reflecting surfaces, so that an image having a prescribed pattern is arranged on one side of the tube to be observed from the other side.
Therefore, it is impossible to reflect the observer of such a kaleidoscope in the image, for example.
While it is possible to cause interreflection through the mirrors for forming various patterns, the patterns can be changed only by a method of changing the object image.
On the other hand, there have been proposed various apparatuses for supplying picked-up image information with special effects by employing video signals as inputs. Such a video special effect apparatus can invert the overall image or implement cross-dissolve or wipe-off effects for smoothly switching two scenes, for example.
In the conventional kaleidoscope having the aforementioned structure, it is impossible to form a kaleidoscopic pattern with movement of a part of the observer's body or an object in his hand, for example. In relation to rehabilitation for a physical handicap or the like, expected is improvement of the rehabilitative effects through group work of a plurality of persons. In this group work, images of a plurality of persons having prescribed patterns in their hands respectively may be picked up by a video camera and projected on a screen, so that the persons can form an integrated pattern on the screen in cooperation with each other.
If the picked-up images are simply projected on the screen as such, however, there is a limit in improvement of the difficulty of the group work, and it is difficult to attract the interest of the persons in work. If the aforementioned kaleidoscopic patterns can be projected on the screen, it is advantageous for solving such problems.
In relation to background images for a dance performed on the stage or the like, for example, only images irrelevant to the dance can be presented or only monotonous images such as those displaying movement merely changing color tones of persons or the like can be formed in general.
Also in this case, it is possible to attain stage effects attracting the audience's interest if a complex geometric pattern can be displayed in synchronization with the dance or the like.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic kaleidoscopic apparatus which can form a kaleidoscopic image with movement of a part of the observer himself or an object in his hand.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic kaleidoscopic apparatus which can add optical effects to a kaleidoscopic pattern by dynamically changing arrangement of mirrors or through image processing by a computer.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic kaleidoscopic apparatus which can output corresponding sounds for forming a kaleidoscopic pattern by combining an image with the sounds.
Briefly stated, the present invention provides an electronic kaleidoscopic apparatus, which comprises an image pickup unit, a kaleidoscopic image forming part, and a display unit.
The image pickup unit converts a picked-up optical image to a pickup signal. The kaleidoscopic image forming part receives the pickup signal, and forms an image signal of a kaleidoscopic pattern. This kaleidoscopic image forming part includes an image extracting part for receiving the pickup signal and cutting a partial pickup signal, corresponding to a specified polygonal region in the picked-up scene, out of the pickup signal in accordance with an external instruction, and an image processing part for successively repeating a step of forming a mirror image by inverting/duplicating an original image of the partial pickup signal about each edge, defining a symmetry axis, of the polygonal region on the mirror image formed in each step thereby forming an image signal of a kaleidoscopic image filling up a screen. The display unit outputs a corresponding image in response to an output of the kaleidoscopic image forming part.
According to another aspect of the present invention, an electronic kaleidoscopic apparatus comprises an image pickup unit, a kaleidoscopic image forming part, and a display unit.
The image pickup unit converts a picked-up optical image to a pickup signal. The kaleidoscopic image forming part receives the pickup signal, and forms an image signal of a kaleidoscopic pattern. This kaleidoscopic image forming part includes an image extracting part for receiving the pickup signal and cutting a partial pickup signal corresponding to a specified angle region about a specified central point in the picked-up scene out of the pickup signal in accordance with an external instruction, and an image processing part for successively inverting/duplicating an original image of the partial pickup signal along an edge, defining a mirror image symmetry axis, of a prescribed rotational direction about the central point along the prescribed rotational direction thereby forming an image signal of a kaleidoscopic pattern filling up a screen. The display unit outputs a corresponding image in response to an output of the kaleidoscopic image forming part.
Thus, a principal advantage of the present invention resides in that it is possible to form a kaleidoscopic image based on image information with respect to the whole body or a part of the observer for the kaleidoscopic image or an object in his hand.
Another advantage of the present invention resides in that it is possible to form an image further attracting the observer's concern or interest by combining an output of a sound signal with that of an image signal.
Still further advantage of the present invention resides in that it is also possible to form a kaleidoscopic image having various changes by adding an image subjected to computer graphics processing to actually picked-up image information.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4247181 (1981-01-01), Innes-Brown et al.
patent: 0437074 (1991-07-01), None
patent: 2277226 (1994-10-01), None
Fels et al., “MusiKalscope: A Graphical Musical Instrument”, Proceedings IEEE International Conference of Multimedia Computing and Systems '97, Ottawa, Ont., Canada, Jun. 3-6, 1997, IEEE Comput. Soc., USA, pp. 55-62, XP-002059424.
Pickover et al., “Electronic Kaleidoscopes for the Mind”, Computer Graphics forum, Mar. 1992, vol. 12, No. 1., pp. 41-46, XP-002059425.
Poole, Alan W., “VIC Kaleidoscope” Compute. Journal for Progressive Computing, May 1983, vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 146-148, XP-002059426.
Fels Sidney Sol
Mase Kenji
ATR Media Integration & Communication Research Laboratories
Harvey David E.
McDermott & Will & Emery
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