(19)
(11) EP 2 523 165 A8

(12) CORRECTED EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION
Note: Bibliography reflects the latest situation

(15) Correction information:
Corrected version no 1 (W1 A2)

(48) Corrigendum issued on:
02.01.2013 Bulletin 2013/01

(43) Date of publication:
14.11.2012 Bulletin 2012/46

(21) Application number: 12167366.9

(22) Date of filing: 09.05.2012
(51) International Patent Classification (IPC): 
G06T 7/00(2006.01)
(84) Designated Contracting States:
AL AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU LV MC MK MT NL NO PL PT RO RS SE SI SK SM TR
Designated Extension States:
BA ME

(30) Priority: 13.05.2011 CN 201110124317

(71) Applicants:
  • Omron Corporation
    Kyoto-shi, Kyoto 600-8530 (JP)
  • Tsinghua University
    Beijing 100084 (CN)

(72) Inventors:
  • Hu, Shi-Min
    BEIJING (CN)
  • Cheng, Ming-Ming
    BEIJING (CN)
  • Zhang, Guo-Xin
    BEIJING (CN)
  • Mitra, Niloy J.
    LONDON, WC1E 6BT (GB)
  • Ruan, Xiang
    KYOTO-SHI, Kyoto 600-8530 (JP)

(74) Representative: Wilhelms · Kilian & Partner Patentanwälte 
Eduard-Schmid-Straße 2
81541 München
81541 München (DE)

   


(54) Image processing method and image processing device


(57) The present invention relates to an image processing method and image processing device for detecting visual saliency of an image based on regional contrast. The method includes: a segmentation step that segments an input image into a plurality of regions by using an automatic segmentation algorithm; and a computation step that calculates a saliency value of one region of the plurality of segmented regions by using a weighted sum of color differences between the one region and all other regions. According to the present invention, it is possible to automatically analyze visual saliency regions in an image, and a result of analysis can be used in application areas including significant object segmentation, object recognition, adaptive image compression, content-aware image resizing, and image retrieval.