A communication system includes a server device and a client device. The server device includes an encoding unit that encodes information about characters contained in a first image to generate an encoded image, a generation unit that generates a second image in which the generated encoded image is embedded at a position specified from a position of the characters on the first image in place of the characters, and a transmission unit that transmits the second image to the client device in response to a request for the first image from the client device. The client device includes an extraction unit that extracts the encoded image from the received second image, a decoding unit that decodes the extracted encoded image, and a replacement unit that replaces the encoded image on the second image with characters specified from decoded information to generate the first image.

An information embedding device, comprising: a memory; and a processor configured to execute a procedure, the procedure including: from an image, detecting, as an embedding target pixel block, a pixel block having a pixel value that, after being changed by a specific value corresponding to information to be embedded into the image, will be within a first specific range of an average value of pixel values of a surrounding pixel block; and changing the pixel value of the detected embedding target pixel block by the specific value.

An image processing apparatus capable of changing a halftone pattern set to a coding pattern that will be synthesized with an image to another halftone pattern that can uniformly generate the coding pattern when the coding pattern cannot be uniformly generated in performing a halftone process using the halftone pattern set to the cording pattern. A setting unit sets a halftone pattern used in a halftone process from among a plurality of halftone patterns. A determination unit determines whether a coding pattern can be uniformly generated when the halftone process is performed using the halftone pattern set by the setting unit as the coding pattern to be synthesized with an image to be printed. A changing unit changes a halftone pattern used in the halftone process to another halftone pattern capable of uniformly generating the coding pattern when the determination unit determines that the coding pattern cannot be uniformly generated.

An image conversion method is provided for integrating a security feature in a digital source image to generate a target image secured by the integrated security feature. The image conversion method includes carrying out transverse-wave-shaped distortion of the source image to generate an intermediate image; generating a target image, the intermediate image being scanned by rows of pixels to define, per row of pixels of the intermediate image, a sequence of successive pixels according to the scanning, and each pixel of the sequence being transformed to a corresponding pixel of the target image. The arrangement of the respective pixels of each sequence is a transverse-wave-shaped wave packet in the target image; and the integrated security feature is defined by the wave packets.

A method includes obtaining multiple video frames. The method also includes determining whether a bi-directional optical flow between the multiple video frames satisfies an image quality criterion for bi-directional consistency. The method further includes identifying a non-linear curve based on pixel coordinate values from at least two of the video frames. The at least two video frames include first and second video frames. The method also includes generating interpolated video frames between the first and second video frames by applying non-linear interpolation based on the non-linear curve. In addition, the method includes outputting the interpolated video frames for presentation.

An apparatus includes at least one processing device configured to obtain input frames from a video. The at least one processing device is also configured to generate a forward flow from a first input frame to a second input frame and a backward flow from the second input frame to the first input frame. The at least one processing device is further configured to generate an occlusion map at an interpolated frame coordinate using the forward flow and the backward flow. The at least one processing device is also configured to generate a consistency map at the interpolated frame coordinate using the forward flow and the backward flow. In addition, the at least one processing device is configured to perform blending using the occlusion map and the consistency map to generate an interpolated frame at the interpolated frame coordinate.

A method of embedding data in a printed output having at least two-dimensions is described in which content data for the printed output and data to be embedded in the printed output are obtained. An input property value for a content element from the content data is determined. This is used to determine an output value for a probabilistic distribution of a set of output material compositions for a spatial element of the printed output, corresponding to the content element, based on the data to be embedded and the input property value.

Sparse signal modulation schemes encode a data channel on a substrate in a manner that is robust, flexible to achieve perceptual quality constraints, and provides improved data capacity. The substrate is printed by any of a variety of means to apply the image, with sparse signal, to an object. After image capture of the object, a decoder processes the captured image to detect and extract data modulated into the sparse signal. The sparse signal may incorporate implicit or explicit synchronization components, which are either formed from the data signal or are complementary to it.

A method of embedding data in a printed output having at least two-dimensions is described in which content data for the printed output and data to be embedded in the printed output are obtained. An input property value for a content element from the content data is determined. This is used to determine an output value for a probabilistic distribution of a set of output material compositions for a spatial element of the printed output, corresponding to the content element, based on the data to be embedded and the input property value.

The present disclosure is related to a method for creating hardware texture content for display on a display of a computing device. The method includes receiving by a processor the content in an image file format, where the content includes a first frame and a second frame. After receiving the content, the method includes creating by the processor a first hardware file corresponding to the first frame and creating by the processor a second hardware file corresponding to the second frame. After creating the first and second frames, the method further includes determining by the processing element a first delta hardware file corresponding to changes between the first hardware file and the second hardware file. In the method the first hardware file, the second hardware file, and the first delta hardware file include data directly usable by a graphics processing unit.