| Inventor
William E. Glenn, Ph.D.
Director
IP Status
U.S. Patent 7,110,020
issued 9/19/2006 Contact Information
Office of Technology Transfer
777 Glades Road, ADM 218
Boca Raton, FL 33431-0991 Kurt R. Moore
Assistant V.P. & Director
Ph: 561-297-1165
Fax: 561-297-2141
kmoore34@fau.edu Michelle Webb
Assistant Director
Ph: 561-297-0673
Fax: 561-297-2141
mwebb18@fau.edu Case Number
2002-19
 | Technology Eventually, cinema may become a completely electronic system. Until that time, it is likely that programs will be shot on film, processed digitally, and then scanned back onto film for distribution to theaters. The invention is a method and apparatus for producing electronic signals representative of images on a source film, and also to recoding, on an object film, images represented by electronic signals. With this invention, optical filtering is used to its fullest advantage. It limits image detail near the spatial frequency of the scanning pattern and an aperture is used for optical filtering with sharp cutoff that is easily adjustable to determine optimum performance. The process is currently performed with laser scanners, which is very expensive and slow. It typically takes several seconds per frame for the scanning process. In addition to this speed problem, there is a need for an optical pre and post filter in the process. Currently, the film grain beats with the scanning pattern producing alias spatial frequencies that are more visible than the original grain. An optical pre-filter is needed to limit the image detail near the spatial frequency of the scanning pattern. The filter needs to have a sharp cut-off to prevent it from reducing the detail in the image. When scanning back onto film, normally there is a visible pixel structure that makes the image appear as if it has screen wire superimposed on the image. This can be eliminated with an optical post-filter that has a sharp cut-off that filters out the information above the Nyquist limit, which is the highest frequency that can be coded at a given sampling rate in order to be able to fully reconstruct the signal. With this invention, these scanning processes can be completed using a lens that images the film onto a sensor like a CCD for digitizing and then imaging onto film the processed information displayed on a high resolution LCD panel. In both cases the color is produced frame-sequentially with red, green and blue light sources. For the digitizing process, a fourth exposure is made with infra-red light. The film dyes are transparent to infra-red so that this exposure shows only scratches and dirt. The scratch and dirt information is used in the processing with error concealment techniques to clean up the image. Laser light sources can be used for both of the scanning processes. Applications Use in the film digitizing field (motion picture industry) and making release prints from processed digital information. State of Development and Commercialization Available for licensing 
(c) Florida Atlantic University All rights reserved.
Updated August 9, 2008 |
