Patent ID: 8180113
Filing Date: 2012-05-15
Classification: G06K,G06T,H04N

Abstract:
1. A stain determination apparatus comprising: a feature extracting unit which extracts a plurality of feature information items from an image information containing an inherent variation; a separating unit which separates the plurality of feature information items extracted from the image information by the feature extracting unit into a component of the inherent variation and a residual component other than the inherent variation component, and a determining unit which extracts a component of a stain variation indicating a stain degree in the image information from the residual component obtained by the separating unit and determines a stain degree in the image information based on a magnitude of the extracted stain variation component, wherein the image information is image information obtained by reading a printed matter on which a specified pattern is printed, the inherent variation is a printing variation caused by a variation in printing for the printed matter, and the stain variation is a variation in a stain caused on the printed matter by an external factor, and wherein the separating unit transforms a set of the plurality of feature information items into a first partial vector containing the inherent variation component and a plurality of other residual components, and the determining unit transforms a set of the plurality of residual components into a second partial vector containing a stain variation component and a component other than the above component and determines a stain degree in the image information based on a magnitude of the stain variation component in the second partial vector.