US 20090102855 A1
A display system comprises a display panel substantially comprising a subpixel repeating group tiled across the panel in a regular pattern. The subpixel repeating group comprises at least one white subpixel and a plurality of colored subpixels. The display system further comprises input circuitry configured to receive input image data indicating an image for rendering on the display panel, and subpixel rendering circuitry configured to compute an output luminance value for each subpixel of said display panel. The subpixel rendering circuitry multiplies data values of a spatial portion of the input image data by at least one image filter kernel which comprises a matrix of coefficients arranged such that each coefficient represents a fractional part of one of said data values of said spatial portion of said input image data. The subpixel rendering circuitry is further configured to sharpen the output luminance values using a luminance signal.
1. A method for rendering input image data onto a display panel; said display panel substantially comprising a subpixel repeating group comprising at least one white subpixel and a plurality of primary color subpixels; the steps of said method comprising:
receiving input image data for rendering on said display panel;
for each individual color plane formed by said white subpixels and by same-colored primary color subpixels, subpixel rendering said input image data to produce subpixel rendered image data; and
sharpening the subpixel rendered image data with a luminance signal.
2. The method of
3. The method of
4. The method of
determining a luminance image data component from said input image data;
mapping said luminance image data component onto said white subpixels.
5. The method of
6. The method of
This application is a divisional of, and claims priority to, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/780,898 filed on Jul. 7, 2007 which is a continuation of, and claims priority to, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/821,388 filed on Apr. 9, 2004, and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,248,268.
In commonly owned United States Patent Applications: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/916,232, entitled “ARRANGEMENT OF COLOR PIXELS FOR FULL COLOR IMAGING DEVICES WITH SIMPLIFIED ADDRESSING,” filed Jul. 25, 2001, now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,903,754 (“the '754 patent”); (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/278,353, entitled “IMPROVEMENTS TO COLOR FLAT PANEL DISPLAY SUB-PIXEL ARRANGEMENTS AND LAYOUTS FOR SUB-PIXEL RENDERING WITH INCREASED MODULATION TRANSFER FUNCTION RESPONSE,” filed Oct. 22, 2002, and published as US Patent Publication No. 2003/0128225 (“the '225 application”); (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/278,352, entitled “IMPROVEMENTS TO COLOR FLAT PANEL DISPLAY SUB-PIXEL ARRANGEMENTS AND LAYOUTS FOR SUB-PIXEL RENDERING WITH SPLIT BLUE SUB-PIXELS,” filed Oct. 22, 2002 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,417,648 (“the '648 patent”); (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/243,094, entitled “IMPROVED FOUR COLOR ARRANGEMENTS AND EMITTERS FOR SUB-PIXEL RENDERING,” filed Sep. 13, 2002 and published as US Patent Publication No. 2004/0051724 (“the '724 application”); (5) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/278,328, entitled “IMPROVEMENTS TO COLOR FLAT PANEL DISPLAY SUB-PIXEL ARRANGEMENTS AND LAYOUTS WITH REDUCED BLUE LUMINANCE WELL VISIBILITY,” filed Oct. 22, 2002 and published as US Patent Publication No. 2003/0117423 (“the '423 application”); (6) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/278,393, entitled “COLOR DISPLAY HAVING HORIZONTAL SUB-PIXEL ARRANGEMENTS AND LAYOUTS,” filed Oct. 22, 2002 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,283,142 (“the '142 patent”); (7) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/347,001 entitled “IMPROVED SUB-PIXEL ARRANGEMENTS FOR STRIPED DISPLAYS AND METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR SUB-PIXEL RENDERING SAME,” filed Jan. 16, 2003, and published as US Patent Publication No. 2004/0080479 (“the '479 application”); each of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, novel sub-pixel arrangements are disclosed for improving the cost/performance curves for image display devices.
For certain subpixel repeating groups having an even number of subpixels in a horizontal direction, the following systems and techniques to affect improvements, e.g. proper dot inversion schemes and other improvements, are disclosed and are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/456,839 entitled “IMAGE DEGRADATION CORRECTION IN NOVEL LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS” and published as US Patent Publication No. 2004/0246280 (“the '280 application”); (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/455,925 entitled “DISPLAY PANEL HAVING CROSSOVER CONNECTIONS EFFECTING DOT INVERSION” and published as US Patent Publication No. 2004/0246213 (“the '213 application”); (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/455,931 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD OF PERFORMING DOT INVERSION WITH STANDARD DRIVERS AND BACKPLANE ON NOVEL DISPLAY PANEL LAYOUTS” now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,218,301 (“the '301 patent”); (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/455,927 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COMPENSATING FOR VISUAL EFFECTS UPON PANELS HAVING FIXED PATTERN NOISE WITH REDUCED QUANTIZATION ERROR” now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,209,105 (“the '105 patent”); (5) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/456,806 entitled “DOT INVERSION ON NOVEL DISPLAY PANEL LAYOUTS WITH EXTRA DRIVERS” now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,187,353 (“the '353 patent”); (6) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/456,838 entitled “LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY BACKPLANE LAYOUTS AND ADDRESSING FOR NON-STANDARD SUBPIXEL ARRANGEMENTS” now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,397,455 (“the '455 patent”); (7) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/696,236 entitled “IMAGE DEGRADATION CORRECTION IN NOVEL LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS WITH SPLIT BLUE SUBPIXELS”, filed Oct. 28, 2003 and published as US Patent Publication No. 2005/0083277 (“the '277 application”); and (8) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/807,604 entitled “IMPROVED TRANSISTOR BACKPLANES FOR LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS COMPRISING DIFFERENT SIZED SUBPIXELS”, filed Mar. 23, 2004 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,268,758 (“the '758 patent”);.
These improvements are particularly pronounced when coupled with sub-pixel rendering (SPR) systems and methods further disclosed in those applications and in commonly owned United States Patent Applications: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/051,612, entitled “CONVERSION OF A SUBPIXEL FORMAT DATA TO ANOTHER SUB-PIXEL DATA FORMAT,” filed Jan. 16, 2002 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,123,277 (“the '277 patent”); (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/150,355, entitled “METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR SUB-PIXEL RENDERING WITH GAMMA ADJUSTMENT,” filed May 17, 2002 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,221,381 (“the '381 patent”); (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/215,843, entitled “METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR SUB-PIXEL RENDERING WITH ADAPTIVE FILTERING,” filed Aug. 8, 2002 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,184,066 (“the '066 patent”); (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/379,767 entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR TEMPORAL SUB-PIXEL RENDERING OF IMAGE DATA” filed Mar. 4, 2003 and published as U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0196302 (“the '302 application”); (5) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/379,765 entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MOTION ADAPTIVE FILTERING,” filed Mar. 4, 2003 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,167,186 (“the '186 patent”); (6) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/379,766 entitled “SUB-PIXEL RENDERING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPROVED DISPLAY VIEWING ANGLES” filed Mar. 4, 2003 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,917,368 (“the '368 patent”); (7) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/409,413 entitled “IMAGE DATA SET WITH EMBEDDED PRE-SUBPIXEL RENDERED IMAGE” filed Apr. 7, 2003, now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,352,374 (“the '374 patent”); which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Improvements in gamut conversion and mapping are disclosed in commonly owned and co-pending United States Patent Applications: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/691,200 entitled “HUE ANGLE CALCULATION SYSTEM AND METHODS”, filed Oct. 21, 2003 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,980,219 (“the '219 patent”); (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/691,377 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONVERTING FROM SOURCE COLOR SPACE TO RGBW TARGET COLOR SPACE”, filed Oct. 21, 2003 and published as US Patent Publication No. 2005/0083341 (“the '341 application”); (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/691,396 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONVERTING FROM A SOURCE COLOR SPACE TO A TARGET COLOR SPACE”, filed Oct. 21, 2003 and published as US Patent Publication No. 2005/0083352 (“the '352 application”) and (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/690,716 entitled “GAMUT CONVERSION SYSTEM AND METHODS” filed Oct. 21, 2003 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,176,935 (“the '935 patent”); which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Additional advantages have been described in (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/696,235 entitled “DISPLAY SYSTEM HAVING IMPROVED MULTIPLE MODES FOR DISPLAYING IMAGE DATA FROM MULTIPLE INPUT SOURCE FORMATS”, filed Oct. 28, 2003, now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,084,923 (“the '923 patent”); and (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/696,026 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PERFORMING IMAGE RECONSTRUCTION AND SUBPIXEL RENDERING TO EFFECT SCALING FOR MULTI-MODE DISPLAY” filed Oct. 28, 2003 and published as US Patent Publication No. 2005/0088385 (“the '385 application”).
Additionally, these co-owned and co-pending applications are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/821,387 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPROVING SUB-PIXEL RENDERING OF IMAGE DATA IN NON-STRIPED DISPLAY SYSTEMS” and published as US Patent Publication No. 2005/0225548 (“the '548 application”); (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/821,386 entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SELECTING A WHITE POINT FOR IMAGE DISPLAYS” now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,301,543 (“the '543 patent”); (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/821,353 entitled “NOVEL SUBPIXEL LAYOUTS AND ARRANGEMENTS FOR HIGH BRIGHTNESS DISPLAYS” and published as US Patent Publication No. 2005/0225574 (“the '574 application”); (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/821,306 entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR IMPROVED GAMUT MAPPING FROM ONE IMAGE DATA SET TO ANOTHER” and published as US Patent Publication No. 2005/0225562 (“the '562 application”); which are all hereby incorporated by reference. All patent applications mentioned in this specification are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in, and constitute a part of this specification illustrate exemplary implementations and embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain principles of the invention.
Reference will now be made in detail to implementations and embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts.
Subpixel Rendering for Five Color Systems w/White
One possible embodiment of a display system using this layout may process image data and render it as follows:
(1) Convert conventional data (e.g. RGB, sRGB, YCbCr,or the like) to RGBCW+L image data, if needed;
The subpixel rendering filter kernels may be constructed from area resampling theory, as disclosed earlier in many incorporated applications noted above. Both layouts may be subpixel rendered from data sets that have a one-to-one mapping. That is to say, one incoming conventional pixel maps to one white subpixel. The white subpixels may then fully reconstruct the bulk of the non-saturated luminance signal of the image. The surrounding colored subpixels then operate to provide the color signal. The incoming image may be any format of color signal, as long as color gamut mapping with or without gamut expansion, may operate to convert said format to RGBCW expected by the subpixel rendering engine. It will be appreciated that such area resampling filters may be replaced by other suitable subpixel rendering techniques: resampling using bicubic filter, sinc filters, windowed-sinc filter and any convolutions thereof. It will be further appreciated that the scope of the present invention encompasses the use of these other techniques.
As the white subpixels are mapped one to one, they may use a unity filter with no further processing required. The color planes may be filtered using several possible kernels. For example, assuming that the image is band-limited, one embodiment might shift the phase of each of the color planes and the Luminance plane to the interstitial positions of the color subpixels in the horizontal direction. This may be accomplished with a simple cubic interpolation filter: −1/16, 9/16, 9/16, −1/16. It should be note that the white plane may not need to be shifted. For non-band-limited images (e.g. text or sharp edges in images), there may not need to be the cubic filtered phase shift as above.
Then, the color planes may be filtered with an area resample filter. A Difference of Gaussian (DOG) filter applied to luminance may optionally be added, examples are given here:
It should be noted that non-zero values coincide with the same color to keep the color balanced. Using the luminance signal implements a simplified “cross-color” sharpening.
In another embodiment, one could also perform actual cross-color sharpening, distributing the values of the cross-color coefficients among the color filter kernels such that the matrices add up to the desired numbers such as above. One method that may be useful is to divide the values of the actual subpixel luminances—red, green, blue, and cyan—by the luminance value of the color that is being sharpened, and then multiply the result by the matrix above times a suitable normalization constant such that it adds up to the matrix above. Another way might be to not perform the normalization, which would mean that some colors would experience greater than unity gain sharpening. The colors that experienced the greatest gain would be the colors with the lowest luminance. This last property may be useful to reduce the “dottiness” of the high spatial frequency detail, increasing the quality of the signal. These methods and techniques of using varying sharpening gain on the colors may also be driven by the luminance signal as above.
In one embodiment, multiplying the values of the sharpening matrix by a constant allows adjustment of the gain of the system. For this embodiment, if the constant is less than one, the filter is softer; if the constant is greater than one, the filter is sharper. Of course, other embodiments are contemplated by the present invention with different matrices and constants.
It should also be noted that the one possible method uses the simplest subpixel rendering filter kernels—with the math being performed substantially by bit shift division and addition. Other methods and embodiments may give numbers that require more multi-bit precision multipliers. Of course, performing the color gamut mapping may require such multipliers as well.
As well as cross-color sharpening, one embodiment of the system may be implemented using self-sharpening by adding the two matrices together. For example, the following may be useful for the arrangement of
Since the mapping of the conventional pixel data, in what ever form it comes in, to the multi-primary space is indeterminate, this may introduce a degree of freedom that could be advantageous. For example, choosing any given algorithm may always give the right color over all; but may not give the best visual result. For example, the color subpixels, not all having the same luminance, may introduce a spurious pattern for many non-optimal mappings. The desired color mapping would give the most even texture for patches of a given color, minimizing visible spatial frequencies of luminance modulation, over the broadest range of colors; hue, saturation, and brightness. Such a mapping would allow the fine details to be displayed using the algorithm disclosed above. In another embodiment, the system might work with a plurality of transform matrices, if no single transform matrix provides optimal result for all colors. It may be advantageous to create domains, or even continuously variable transforms.
In many cases, novel RGBW panels (and 5-, 6-, n-color panels, for that matter) will be called upon to render legacy RGB or other 3-color image data. In many applications incorporated by reference above, there are described various embodiments for subpixel rendering resampling a modified conventional image data set. The modification is that each and every incoming conventional pixel has four (or more)—instead of three—color component values; e.g. Red, Green, Blue, and “White”. The “White” in quotes denotes that this color point may or may not be at the white point of the display when all color subpixels are set to their maximum values. It may be desirable that any Gamut Mapping Algorithm (GMA) conversion from RGB to RGBW (or other multiprimary color space) occur before the subpixel rendering to keep the image from being blurred. The filter set could be designed to produce good results for both text and photographs. For example, in the '724 application incorporated by reference, there are shown some novel RGBW and RGBC layouts. For these layouts, one embodiment of the filters for the SPR for layouts that have a red/green checkerboard may be the following:
The Red and Green color planes are area resampled to remove any spatial frequencies that will cause chromatic aliasing. The DOG wavelet is used to sharpen the image using the cross-color component. That is to say, the red color plane is used to sharpen the green subpixel image and the green color plane is used to sharpen the red subpixel image. This allows the cross-color luminance signal to be impressed onto the color subpixels, ‘filling in the holes’ in color images. It should be noted that for monochromatic images, the results of cross-color DOG wavelet sharpening is the same as self-color sharpening. It should also be noted that the coefficients disclosed above are exemplary of one particular embodiment and that the present invention contemplates many other matrices having suitable coefficients that suffice.
The Blue color plane may be resampled using one of a plurality of filters. For example, blue could be resampled with a simple 2×2 box filter:
Alternatively, the Blue color plane could be resampled using a box-tent filter centered on the blue subpixel:
Moreover, the white plane could also be filtered using one of a plurality of filters. For example, the white or cyan color plane could be resampled using a non-axis-separable 4×4 box-cubic filter:
Alternatively, to help abate that there is no phase error, nor aliasing, on the white or cyan subpixel, an axis-separable 3×4 tent-cubic filter might be used:
The use of the box-cubic and tent-cubic filters may help to reduce the moire artifacts in photographs while maintaining sharpness in text by taking advantage of the mid-position of the white subpixels. Although not necessary, it is possible to use the same filters for both blue and white color planes. One could use either the plain box or tent for both, or the box-cubic or tent-cubic for both. Alternatively, the cubic filters should be chosen for both.
The layouts of
In one embodiment, the image source data to the display might assume a square aspect ratio—thus, with no scaling, each input pixel would map to three sub-pixels in this layout. However, these RGBW 1:3 layouts are 4 sub-pixels wide per repeat cell. If source pixels are mapped to groups of three such sub-pixels, then three of the layouts tiled horizontally might suffice before all the possible combinations are found. For each different combination of three output sub-pixels grouped like this, a different set of area resample filters might suffice. This is similar to the process of finding a repeat cell and generating different sets of filters for scaling, as disclosed in applications incorporated above.
In fact, the same logic that does scaling might be used to select suitable filters. In one embodiment, there could be a simplification that may be easier to implement than scaling. As in scaling, there may be symmetries that reduce the total number of filters, and in this case, there are only three filters that are used over and over again in different combinations of colors.
As may be seen in
The resulting images may have a slightly blurred appearance, and thus, it may be possible to apply cross-luminosity sharpening filters to substantially correct this:
It will be appreciated that these cross-luminosity filters are distinguishable from cross-color sharpening filters. One possible advantage of cross-luminosity filtering is that blue and white can be sharpened, as well as red and green (as before with cross-color) with a single value, thus reducing the number of operations. In a low cost RGBW implementation, these luminosity values may be calculated using any of the embodiments disclosed in several applications incorporated herein. One example uses the formula:
It should be noted that this luminosity value can be calculated by performing only shifts and adds in hardware or software.
In one embodiment, the color values may be sampled using the area resample filters above, the luminosity “plane” may be sampled using the cross-luminosity filters, and the two results are added together. This can occasionally produce values below zero or above the maximum, so the results may be clamped to the allowed range.
The area resampling filters above correct for the offset position of the sub-pixel within the source pixel with coefficients that sample a little more of the color to one side or the other. An alternative way to accomplish this may be to use a horizontal cubic filter to change the phase of the input data. When an output sub-pixel lands in the center of an input pixel, no phase adjustment is necessary and the centered area resample filter can be used. When the output sub-pixel lands in an offset position in an input pixel, one of the following two cubic filters may be used to generate a “pseudo-sample” that is aligned with the center of the output sub-pixel:
Once the phase is aligned, the centered area resample filter and sharpening filter may be used for all output sub-pixels. In one exemplary hardware implementation, these cubic filters may be implemented using special purpose logic to do the multiplies by fixed numbers. This calculation could be done on input values before passing them to the sub-pixel rendering logic. The sub-pixel rendering logic may thus be simplified, at the cost of the pre-conditioning of the data with the cubic filter. In one exemplary software implementation, it might be advantageous to convolve the cubic filters with the centered area resample filter. This results in two filter kernels shown below:
These two filters can be substituted for the offset filters in the first area resampling case to simulate the cubic case with no other changes to the software. When these filters are used, the luminosity plane may also be phase aligned which might employ convolving the centered sharpening filter with the two horizontal cubic filters:
As the layouts of
In one embodiment, each input pixel image data may be mapped to two sub-pixels. In effecting this, there are still a number of different ways to align the input pixels and generate the area resampling filters. The first considered was to simply align 4 input pixels directly with the layouts shown in
For non-band-limited images, such as text, computer aided drafting (CAD), line art, or other computer generated images, it may be advantageous to treat pairs of subpixels as though they were substantially coincident, using the substantially exact same filter kernel to resample the image. This will result in sharp verticals and horizontal lines being reconstructed.
Alternatively, these diamond filters may be offset by ¼ of an input pixel. For a panel with the arrangement of
Another embodiment might offset the input pixels until their center points are aligned with the centers of some of the repeating sub-pixels. One example of filters that may suffice are as follows:
One of these is the “diamond” filter while the other is split down the middle. This split may results in a blurring of the information in two of the primaries. In one embodiment, by assuming the input pixels are offset ¼ pixel to the left, the red and green sub-pixels become perfectly aligned while the white and blue sub-pixels use the split filter. In another embodiment, it may be possible to align the pixels with the highest luminosity, so if the input pixels are assumed to be offset ¼ pixel to the right then the white and blue sub-pixels are aligned while the red and green sub-pixels are split across an input pixel. The assignment of the above filters would be modified for a panel based on the arrangement of
This split may be further processed by using a cubic filter to move the phase of the input data for the split sub-pixels until they are also centered. This may be accomplished by using the following cubic filter to do this ½ pixel offset:
This offset filter may be easy to implement as shifts and adds in hardware or software. The input pixels are assumed to be shifted ¼ pixel one direction for half of the output sub-pixels and they may be rendered with the diamond filter. The other 4 sub pixels may have their input shifted with the above cubic filter then they may also be rendered with the diamond filter.
In hardware, it is easy to implement the above cubic shift on the input data as it flows through the SPR controller. In software, it is often more convenient to convolve the cubic filter with the diamond filter and perform a single filtering operation on the input for the non-aligned sub-pixels. In this case, the following combined filter kernel is used:
For the cases when the sub-pixels are aligned or brought into alignment with cubic filters, the standard cross-color or cross-luminosity sharpening filter may be used. If, however, the input pixels remain centered around pairs of output sub-pixels, then it is possible to use the following cross-luminosity filters for sharpening:
The resulting filter kernels may be identical for every sub-pixel of every color and could be a 4×3 filter. However, when converted to 8bit integers, the small areas on the right and left became very small and may be discarded, resulting in the following exemplary filter:
Alternatively, the ½ pixel cubic offset filter may be used to adjust the phase of the input pixels until the pseudo-samples land on the centers of the output sub-pixels again. In this case, the area resample filters may become a 3×3 filters, as given below. Once centered like this, it is possible to use a cross-luminosity sharpening filter for this alignment, as given below.
As with the other layouts disclosed herein, the cubic interpolation accomplishing the ½ pixel alignment may be done on a scan-line basis and may be done to the input data as it arrives. However, in software implementations, it may be convenient to convolve the cubic filter with the above two filters to do each sample in a single step. In this case, the combined cubic and area resampling filter is given below on the left with the combined cubic and sharpening filter on the right:
In another embodiment, the layout of
Apart from use on high brightness layouts, the techniques of performing image data offsets to achieve advantageous filter kernels is also applicable to the full range of other subpixel layouts (e.g. 3-color, 4-color, 5-color, etc.) disclosed herein and in the applications incorporated by reference. The technique of area resampling may be thought, in one sense, in a geometric model for calculating the filter kernels. A picture of a target layout may be typically drawn on top of a grid of source RGB pixels. A center point, called a resample point, may be chosen for each of the sub-pixels in the target layout. Shapes, called resample areas, may be drawn which enclose substantially all of the area that lies closer to one resample point than any other resample point of the same color.
These choices for red and green resample points are in some sense a simplification, done to make the resample areas easier to calculate and the resulting filters less expensive to implement in hardware. In these filter designs, the resample points of the red and green sub pixels were not placed at the centers of the sub-pixels, but were moved slightly left or right to make them align with the centers of the source pixels or logical pixels, as seen in
One embodiment of generating resample areas and their filter kernels will now be described:
(1) A first step is to accept a list of resample points and create a picture or other representation in a bitmap file.
It will be appreciated that other methods and steps may be taken to generate filter kernels for the mapping of input image data to a target subpixel layouts. It suffices for the purposes of the present invention that the filter kernels extract out image data that is substantially correlated to the target subpixels in a spatial manner.
Using a point near the exact center of the sub-pixel as the resample point, in some cases, may be simplified by changing the edge assumptions. A simplifying assumption of placing a target layout (such as shown in the '225 application and other applications incorporated herein) on top of 4 source pixels may result in diamonds and boxes that may be out-of-phase with the input pixels. One example is seen in
When points close to the exact sub-pixel center are used as the resample points for the layout shown in
In another embodiment, both the red resample points can be moved slightly to make the red filter areas diamonds, as may be seen in FIG. 17A—with
Adjusting the relationship between source pixels and the subpixels in the layout shown in
If the edges of the source pixels are aligned with the target layout, one of the green sub pixels may be split between two source pixels. Averaging the two source greens may produce a fuzzy image; while picking one source value may result in some degradation of image quality. Alternatively, the remapping grid 1502 could be shifted between the source pixels so that the green sub pixels are not split, as may be seen in
While the invention has been described with reference to an exemplary embodiment, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings without departing from the essential scope thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the invention not be limited to the particular embodiment disclosed as the best mode contemplated for carrying out this invention, but that the invention will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims.