Patent ID: 7313278

Claim:
An image region segment extraction method comprising extracting an image segment from a video image, extracting only said target area being one of an area aimed at by a cameraman and an essential portion of the video image, and either enlarging an image sequence of said target area, or increasing a resolution only of the target area while high compression scalable coding is performed for other portions of said video image, the step of extracting comprising the steps of: calculating motion data for a video image based on two sequential frames of video images obtained by a video camera; using said sequential video images to estimate the camera operations required of said video camera; referring to said camera operations performed under predetermined conditions to estimate the location of the center of a target area in a video image that has been obtained; designating image features in the vicinity of said center position of said target area; designating an image segment in which said image features are included; extracting said target area being one of: an area aimed at by a cameraman and an essential portion of the video image, and either enlarging an image sequence of said target area, or increasing a resolution only of the target area while performing high compression scalable coding for other portions of said video image, wherein said video image is selected from a format taken from a group of formats including: an MPEG format, a CGM format, an EPS format, a GIF format, a JPEG format, a PICT format, a PNG format, a PS format, a TIF format or a BMP format; wherein said step of calculating said camera operations includes the step of: making an estimation of the robustness of a predetermined parameter of said camera operations, so as to perform a robust estimation process for the camera operation to enable determination of camera operations, such as panning, tilting and zooming; further comprising a steps of: obtaining an average movement for said predetermined parameter for two sequential frames; wherein, at said step of estimating said center position of said target area, a rule is employed concerning front-space video in said camera operations; at least one of: trimming said image segment and generating a trimmed image, and performing scalable coding to obtain a high resolution for said image segment.