Methods and systems for automated selection of regions of an image for secondary finishing and generation of mask image of same

Abstract

Automated systems, methods and tools that automatically extract and select portions of an image to automatically generate a premium finish mask specific to the image which require little or no human intervention are presented. Graphical user interface tools allowing a user to provide an image and to indicate regions of the image for application of premium finish are also presented.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computerized apparatus executing a server which segments and designates premium finish regions based on an image received from a client device in communications with the server via a communications network, the server operating to:
 generate from the received image a segments image having a plurity of pixels corresponding to the respective plurality of pixels of the received image, the segmented image comprising discrete segments each comprising a subset of pixels;   process the segmented image to classify one or more of the discrete segments as foreground segments and one or more of the discrete segments as background segments by receiving a selection area boundary that corresponds to a selection area of the segments area of the segmented image as foreground segments and classifying all segments outside of or that overlap the selection area of the segments image as background segments; and   designate the foreground segments as premium finish regions and the background segments as primary finish regions; and   provide the designation of the premium finish regions to the client device via the communications network.   
     
     
         2 . The computerize apparatus of  claim 1 , the server further operating to:
 generate a mask image corresponding to the received image, the mask image having first areas indicating the primary finish regions and second area indicating the premium finish regions; and   provide the mask image as the designation of the premium finish regions to the client device via the communications network.   
     
     
         3 . The computerized apparatus of  claim 1 , the server computer operating to generate the segmented image by
 smoothing the received image while preserving strong edges, and   generating a color-segmented image from the smoothed image through extraction of segment labels based on color.   
     
     
         4 . The computerized apparatus of  claim 3 , the server computer smoothing the received image by applying mean-shift filtering to the received image to generate the smoothed image. 
     
     
         5 . The computerized apparatus of  claim 4 , the server computer generating the color-segmented image by applying connected component labeling to the smoothed image based on color proximity. 
     
     
         6 . A computer implemented method for segmenting and designating premium finish regions based on an image at a client device, the client device in communication via a communications network with a server executing on a computer device, the method comprising:
 sending by the client device the image to the server via the communications network;   receiving by the client device, from the server via the communications network, a designation of the premium finish regions in the image, the designation of the premium finish regions generate by the server by   generating from the received image a segmented image having a plurality of pixels corresponding to the respective plurality of pixels of the received image, the segmented image comprising discrete segments each comprising a subset of pixels;   processing the segmented image to classify one or more of the discrete segments as foreground segments and one or more of the discrete segments as background segments by receiving a selection area boundary that corresponds to a selection area of the segmented image and classifying all segments and classifying all segments outside of or that overlap the selection area of the segmented image as background segments; and   designating the foreground segments as premium finish regions and the background segments as primary finish regions.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , the designation of the premium finish regions generated by
 generating a mask corresponding to the received image, the mask image having first areas indicating the primary finish regions and second areas indicating the premium finish regions; and   providing the mask image as the designation of the premium finish regions to the client device via the communications network.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , the server generating the segmented image by
 smoothing the received image while preserving strong edges, and   generating a color-segmented image from the smoothed image through extraction of segment labels based on color.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 3 , the server smoothing the received image by applying mean-shift filtering to the received image to generate the smoothed image. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 4 , the server generating the color-segmented image by applying connected component labeling to the smoothed image based on color proximity. 
     
     
         11 . A computerized apparatus executing a client process in communication with a serve via a communications network, the client operating to:
 rend an image to the server via the communications network;   receive, from the server via the communications network, a designation of the premium finish regions in the image, a designation of the premium finish regions for the image, as generated by the server, the server generating the designation of premium finish regions by generating from the received plurality of pixels of the received image, the segmented image comprising discrete segments each comprising a subset of pixels;   processing the segmented image to classify one or more of the discrete segments as foreground segments and one or more of the discrete segments as background segments by receiving a selection area boundary that corresponds to a selection area of the segmented image and classifying all segments that are fully contained within the selection area of the segmented image as foreground segments and classifying all segments outside of or that overlap the selection area of the segmented image as background segments, and   designating the foreground segments as premium finish regions and the background segments as primary finish regions.   
     
     
         12 . The computerized apparatus of  claim 1 , the designation of the premium finish regions further generated by
 generating a mask image corresponding to the received image, the mask image having first areas indicating the primary finish regions and second areas indicating the premium finish regions; and   providing the mask image as the designation of the premium finish regions to the client device via the communications network.   
     
     
         13 . The computerized apparatus of  claim 1 , the server generating the segmented image by smoothing the received image while preserving strong edges, and
 generating a color-segmented image from the smoothed image through extraction of segment labels based on color.   
     
     
         14 . The computerized apparatus of  claim 3 , the server smoothing the received image by applying mean-shift filtering to the received image to generate the smoothed image. 
     
     
         15 . The computerized apparatus of  claim 4 , the server generating the color-segmented image by applying connected component labeling to the smoothed image based on color proximity.