[in Japanese]

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Various image processing modes and more complicated processing algorithms have come to be used in image processing and its related fields, e. g., image recognition, understanding and coding. Conventional image processing hardware and VLSI are designed mainly to accelerate the execution speed of elemental processing algorithms represented by neighboring operations. However, a new type of tool is required to efficiently develop and evaluate algorithms corresponding to various types of processing modes. From this point of view, a flexible parallel picture processor is developed, consisting of multimicroprocessors and distributed video memories. This processor easily offers various processing modes, such as parallel, pipeline and hierarchical types, without changing hardware configuration. It also has flexibility in transmission and access of image data, software development and future expansion.

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Pupil size is well known to change in response to brightness and mental activities, but the correlation between these two reactions is unclear.
First, pupullary changes were measured at various brightnesses, with and without audio instructions which stimulate mental activities. ANOVA found that there is no interaction between pupillary changes due to brightness effects and mental activities.
Second, patterns were presented to subjects at various brightnesses after initially being presented at a constant brightness.
The correction function is obtained that controls pupil size according to the brightness level. Subject interest in each pattern is evaluated from the pupillary changes as corrected by this function.

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A Frame Interline Transfer CCD image sensor with 1258 (H) × 1035 (V) pixels is developed for a HDTV camera with 3 chips. To obtain a high speed frame transfer, a novel gate structure is devised where an Al layer is used not only as a photoshield but also as a pulse supply wire. As a result, the attained transfer speed is as high as 625 kHz, together with a smear level as low as 0.001% and a dynamic range of 72 dB. To suppress power consumption, a dual horizontal CCD (HCCD) is used. This CCD is designed by device simulation to avoid potential barrier formation causing vertical fixed pattern noise. The obtained chip has vertical and horizontal resolutions of 700 TV lines and a low image lag below 1%.

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A new method to separate and reconstruct the images in a double exposure is presented. First, the relationship is derived between the Fourier phase and the energy density spectrum of the first of two images in a double exposure film frame. By using this relationship, the phase of the first image can then be reconstructed in terms of its relevant energy density spectra. The two images can be completely separated once the density spectra of both are known. Simulation examples show that image separation and reconstruction can be successfully completed using this method.

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A system which can recognize speech and generate a corresponding animation-like sign language sequence in real time has previously been developed and implemented in a popular personal computer with a floppy disk unit and a voice recognition board which recognizes only the registered voice of a specific speaker. The sign language pattern in the floppy disk is displayed as a binarized illustration in which it is difficult to represent mouth-shape, emotion, reality, etc. Therefore, a system using optical video disk units instead of the floppy disk units is developed. In order to display a video image continuously even while searching for the next image, two optical disk units are used.

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Recently interference caused by the Sporadic-E ionosphere has caused serious TV reception problems in Japan. This ionosphere reflects the FM broadcasting waves of neighboring countries. These waves propagate over abnormally long distances and disrupt Japanese broadcasting. This paper discusses a simplified interference canceller.
The Split-Nyquist method is proposed to cancel interference. FM waves that could interfere with TV waves are intercepted by a Split-Nyquist filter or a SSB filter, notch filters may be used with either of these as necessary.
To detect these interference waves, the FFT method is proposed. One line of a TV vertical blanking interval is first converted into a digital signal, then into the frequency domain by the FFT.
A simple canceling system was produced using these concept and field experiments were conducted that produced good results.

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In a television system in which detail information is multiplexed with a carrier and transmitted on a NTSC channel, the picture-quality on existing receivers is degraded by the disturbance caused by the multiplexed component.
A “shuffling” method by which the phase of the multiplexing carrier is shifted on a line and field basis is proposed to reduce the disturbance. The locations of the carriers with various shift patterns in three-dimensional frequency space and the characteristics of the human visual system are discussed.
Subjective assessment tests are carried out in order to select the best shift pattern. As a result, the method using the most suitably shuffled carrier reduces the disturbance to less than 50% for ordinary scenes and 38 % for some particular scenes.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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