SpeedView Speeds-up Image Capturing and Processing on Mobile Camera Phone

Posted in DSP - Digital Signal Processing, Mobile Devices, Favorite, Camera, Image
On Friday, June 29, 2007

June 28, 2007

OmniVision Technologies and Scalado announced a technology collaboration, allowing faster picture taking and faster photo viewing on camera phones. OmniVision added a hardware feature to its new 3-megapixel OV3640 CameraChip enabling cameras to take optimal advantage of Scalado's SpeedView technology.

Sami Niemi, CTO for Scalado, said:

Long capture and shot-to-shot times have been a constant complaint ever since the megapixel race began…

…The WYSIWYG Capturing technology makes it possible to really capture the moment, which is the true essence of any camera phone. Add to that instant photo file maneuvering so users can find and share pictures quickly and easily, and we have addressed another major complaint cited by the majority of camera phone users.

The OV3640 is built on OmniVision's newest OmniPixel3 architecture, compatible with Scalado's SpeedView technology, creating a much improved image capturing experience. SpeedView technology produces a unique what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) experience. The new WYSIWYG Capturing technology in the sensor allows users to capture what is actually seen in the viewfinder and instantly replay the captured image, instead of capturing a photo several frames later. Additionally, SpeedView technology enables real-time viewing, zooming and panning of the captured images (10-20 images per second) in the phone's image gallery with no additional hardware. This is critical for capturing spontaneous moments or a quick sequence of events.

Scalado’s SpeedView - a Super Fast Image Processing

Scalado’s SpeedView is specially designed to enable manufacturers and service providers to offer real-time browsing, viewing, zooming and panning of images in mobile devices. SpeedView significantly reduces application development time and greatly increases viewing experiences for users.

The following graph shows the performance when a 3 megapixel image (2048×1536) of 500 Kb with meta data of 31 kB is decoded to different sizes. The results are given in seconds and performed on a 220 Mhz mobile device:

Speedview Graph
*Benchmarked with a standard IJG JPEG library.

SpeedView makes it possible to browse through hundreds of images in a photo gallery, either full resolution or thumbnails, at lightning speed, giving users a true digital photography experience on a mobile phone. Image processing is up to 10 times faster than when using normal JPEG processing methods.

SpeedView is an optional feature module for Scalado’s CAPS SDK, a unique software imaging SDK that enables developers to quickly produce imaging solutions that are extremely CPU and memory efficient and that drastically decrease processing times when managing multi-megapixel images.

SpeedView is powered by Scalado’s RAJPEG technology, a JPEG codec technology that reduces memory requirements in an ingenious way. It processes JPEG input and output images in the compressed domain, enabling viewing of any region of a JPEG image without needing to access the previous parts of the image. RAJPEG radically reduces the amount of memory required by a factor of 25x.

SpeedView introduces so called SpeedView Meta Objects (SPMO), that include additional information of a particular image that helps to speed up the decoding process. These SPMOs can be stored within a file format supporting application specific data such as JPEG or in an external database. By giving RAJPEG extra metadata it can skip steps that otherwise have to be completed.

Key Benefits of SpeedView:

Rapid image scaling
RAJPEG scales down images extremely rapidly, for instance when creating thumbnail views in an album. Rendering performance is so good that scaling time is virtually the same no matter how many images the album contains.
Optimized multilevel zoom
SpeedView includes APIs for smooth and extremely fast rendering of any zoom level, and includes caching mechanisms that only process new regions between the current and the past frame. This creates an instant zoom experience in any constrained platform.
Optimized panning
A revolutionary new panning cache processes only those regions required, speeding up panning experiences to new levels that were previously impossible.
Develop a complete imaging application suite
SpeedView is just one feature module of a complete imaging application suite developed easily using the Scalado CAPS imaging software SDK.
- Camera: Real-time camera features applied when image is captured
- Album: Features for browsing and viewing images stored in the phone
- Editing: Effects and features applied on images stored in the phone
- Collage: The result of assembling two or more images to create a new picture, e.g. panorama or postcards
- Sharing: Processing or resizing when sending or uploading images for blogs, MMS, email, etc.
- Printing: Images may need to be preprocessed before being sent to a printer

(Summarized from Scalado’s SpeedView product brochure)

Related news - March 27, 2007

New Innovative Photo Application Solution for Camera Phones

Scalado and TAT (The Astonishing Tribe), will showcase a new innovative photo application solution from their strategic collaboration at CTIA Wireless 2007 in Orlando.

The two Sweden based companies will showcase a photo album application for camera phones, which includes image browsing and viewing, and continuous zoom on a Windows mobile device that makes image viewing an instant and attractive end user experience.

The two companies have combined the TAT Cascades UI Framework and Scalado CAPS Imaging SDK to gain a combination of an amazing look and feel with instant presentation of multi mega pixel images with seamless zoom and panning. Photo album folders can be selected via thumbnails and full resolution viewing is totally instant without any waiting times. The application includes Scalado’s patented and recently launched SpeedView technology and is platform independent and will soon be available on any camera-phone.

Related news - Feb 08, 2007

SpeedView Brings Super-Fast Image Processing to Mobile Phones

Scalado introduced the Scalado SpeedView, an addition to its CAPS Software Development Kit (SDK) for camera phones. SpeedView will make possible for mobile camera phone user to zoom, browse, and pan across high-resolution images instantly on a mobile handset.

SpeedView has been launched as an optional feature module for Scalado’s CAPS SDK, a unique software imaging toolkit that enables developers to quickly produce imaging solutions for camera phones that offer extraordinary CPU and memory efficiency, thereby drastically decreasing processing times when managing high-resolution images.

Mats Jacobson, Scalado, said:

SpeedView has been specifically designed to bring the ultimate digital photography user experience onto a mobile device…

…With SpeedView, software developers can create a high speed photo viewing application very quickly, and for a fraction of the cost normally associated with this kind of development.

Scalado’s SpeedView will enable real-time viewing of multi-megapixel images, as well as rapid scaling, zooming, and panning, without the need to compromise on image quality. The software includes APIs for smooth and extremely fast rendering of any zoom level, and also features caching mechanisms that can create an instant zoom effect in any constrained platform.

SpeedView employs the Scalado’s RAJPEG technology, a JPEG codec that reduces memory requirements, processing JPEG input and output images in the compressed domain, which enable the viewing of any region of a JPEG image without the need to access the previous parts of the image. SpeedView also uses SpeedView Meta Objects (SPMO) that include additional information of a particular image in order to speed up the decoding process even further. By giving RAJPEG this extra metadata, it can skip steps that would otherwise need to be completed for processing.

SpeedView provides a good example of how Scalado’s CAPS SDK can help developers to quickly produce imaging solutions that allow end-users to capture, edit, browse and manipulate high-resolution images at rapid speed. By using the CAPS SDK in this way, manufacturers can significantly reduce unit costs and time to market, whilst end-users experience faster processing times when performing imaging tasks. This improved user experience will encourage users to capture and share more images, therefore increasing MMS traffic and operator revenues.

A SpeedView Beta-version has been available for evaluation by selected customers during Q4 2006, and the first commercial SpeedView enabled camera phones will be on the market from mid 2007.

About Scalado
Scalado AB is a Swedish imaging software company that focuses on the wireless device industry. It provides mobile imaging software solutions that are powerful, scalable and modular for any camera phone. Its mission is to make imaging on mobile phones more efficient - bringing higher usability for end-users and cutting hardware costs for device manufacturers. With unique and patented software technologies, it is solving critical performance issues with less memory and CPU requirements.

About TAT, The Astonishing Tribe.
TAT (The Astonishing Tribe AB) has added the WOW-effect to mobile user interfaces for more than 90 million devices worldwide. Our products, TAT Cascades and TAT Motion Lab, built on the renowned Kastor platform, has transformed the way UI design and graphics can be implemented on a wide range of mobile devices. TAT products are recognized for their time-to-market savings, resource efficiency and platform independence, giving users a more dynamic, faster and richer multimedia experience, in a truly astonishing way.

About OmniVision
OmniVision Technologies designs and markets high-performance semiconductor image sensors. Its OmniPixel, OmniPixel2, OmniPixel3 and CameraChip products are highly integrated single-chip CMOS image sensors for mass-market consumer and commercial applications such as mobile phones, digital still cameras, security and surveillance systems, interactive video games, lap-tops and PCs and automotive and medical imaging systems.

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