A display case is provided. The display case includes a transparent display for viewing an object through the transparent display and a watermarking engine configured to display a watermark on the transparent display.

Certain examples relate to a method of printing management. An image is received for printing and printing parameters to print the image are determined. The image is printed onto a substrate using the printing parameters, and the image is printed with an embedded code corresponding to the printing parameters. The printing parameters are associated with the embedded code such that the printing parameters are retrievable from the embedded code.

The present disclosure relates generally to data hiding for retail product packaging and other printed objects such as substrates. One embodiment embeds an information signal in a spot color for printing on various substrates. The spot color is screened, and overprinted with process color tint. The tint is modulated prior to overprinting with optimized signal tweaks. The optimization can include consideration of a detector spectral dependency (e.g., red and/or green illumination). Many other embodiments and combinations are described in the subject patent document.

The present technology relates to image signal processing. One aspect of the present technology involves analyzing reference imagery gathered by a camera system to determine which parts of an image frame offer high probabilities of—relative to other image parts—containing decodable watermark data. Another aspect of the present technology whittles-down such determined image frame parts based on detected content (e.g., a cereal box) vs expected background within such determined image frame parts.

An image inspection apparatus includes a first reader and a second reader that acquire read images by respectively reading one side and the other side of a sheet having an image printed thereon, a first background material and a second background material provided at positions as the backgrounds of the sheet in reading by the first reader and the second reader respectively, and a hardware processor that acquires sheet outline information from the read images and measures misalignment of the image with respect to the sheet based on the acquired sheet outline information. The hardware processor acquires read images with the first background material and the second background material having different densities, and acquires sheet outline information of one read image by estimating the sheet outline information of the one read image based on sheet outline information of the other of the read images.

An image inspection apparatus includes a first reader and a second reader that acquire read images by respectively reading one side and the other side of a sheet having an image printed thereon, a first background material and a second background material provided at positions as the backgrounds of the sheet in reading by the first reader and the second reader respectively, and a hardware processor that acquires sheet outline information from the read images and measures misalignment of the image with respect to the sheet based on the acquired sheet outline information. The hardware processor acquires read images with the first background material and the second background material having different densities, and acquires sheet outline information of one read image by estimating the sheet outline information of the one read image based on sheet outline information of the other of the read images.

An image processing method includes an acquisition step of acquiring image data by capturing printed matter, wherein first information and second information, indicating a type of the first information, are embedded in the printed matter as an electronic watermark, an extraction step of extracting the first information and the second information from the image data acquired at the acquisition step, and a processing step of processing the extracted first information by different processing methods in accordance with the extracted second information. Based on that the type of the first information indicated by the second information is a predetermined type, the extracted first information is processed at the processing step, by a predetermined processing method for access to an external device using the extracted first information and display of a web page based on the access.

A method of forming a data-hiding watermark on a surface may include encoding data within an image using the chrominance data of the of the image, adjusting at least one characteristic of the image to enhance the prominence of the encoded data within the image, and printing the adjusted, encoded image onto the surface.

According to implementations of the subject matter described herein, there is provided a solution for data embedding and data extraction in images. To perform data embedding, a target region for data embedding is determined from a source image, such as a chart image. Target data to be embedded is converted into a sequence of logical values represented in a predetermined format. Based on the sequence of logical values, image values of one or more image elements in the target region are changed such that the changed image values in the target region can be used to convey the sequence of logical values corresponding to the target data. The variations in image values are within a predetermined range such that no significant data distortion of perception distortion is caused by the data embedding. In a subsequent process, the embedded data can also be easily extracted from the image for use.

An example device for processing image data includes a memory configured to store an image; and one or more processors implemented in circuitry and configured to: process the image to identify a pilot signal in the image indicating a portion of the image, the pilot signal forming a boundary around the portion and having pixel values defined according to a mathematical relationship with pixel values within the portion such that the pilot signal is not perceptible to a human user and is detectable the device; determine the portion of the image using the pilot signal; and further process the portion to attempt to detect one or more contents of the portion without attempting to detect the one or more contents of the image in portions of the image outside the portion.