Patent application number | Description | Published |
20100261151 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE AUTOMATED TRACKING AND ANALYSIS OF EDUCATIONAL GAMES AND INTERACTIVE TEACHING TOOLS - An integrated system and method for the recording, collection, storage, and representation of individual and aggregate use patterns of a fully-developed matrix of interactive course materials supporting K-16 curricula in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects. Students may utilize interactive educational games to assess their performance across multiple subjects and difficulty levels of a curriculum, and obtain feedback and statistics regarding their progress in attaining educational goals. | 10-14-2010 |
20110044577 | FIBER-OPTIC EXTENSOMETER - An extensometer having a loop of a single-mode optical fiber. At least two points of the loop are attached to desired locations on a specimen. Light is transmitted through the loop and the transmitted optical power is measured by a photodetector. The deformation of the specimen causes the size and shape of the loop to change, which changes the transmitted optical power. The change in optical power is related to extension or compression using calibration curves. The sensor works on the principle of transmitted power modulation through the curved section. | 02-24-2011 |
20130240718 | METHOD FOR MEASURING THE DEFORMATION OF A SPECIMEN USTING A FIBER OPTIC EXTENSOMETER - A method for measuring the deformation of a specimen using an extensometer having a loop of a single-mode optical fiber. At least two points of the loop are attached to desired locations on a specimen. Light is transmitted through the loop and the transmitted optical power is measured by a photodetector. The deformation of the specimen causes the size and shape of the loop to change, which changes the transmitted optical power. The change in optical power is related to extension or compression using calibration curves. The sensor works on the principle of transmitted power modulation through the curved section. | 09-19-2013 |
20150031793 | MULTIFUNCTIONAL SYNTACTIC FOAMS - A multifunctional syntactic foam including a matrix material and hollow particles, where a first and second material property of the syntactic foam are tailored on the basis of the wall thickness and volume fraction of the hollow particles. | 01-29-2015 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090235510 | Bead crimping tool - A bead crimping tool for crimping a bead element and method for use, wherein the tool includes a base handle, a crush plate member, a pair of opposed pincer members, an actuator handle, and a crush arm member. The bead element is placed on the crush plate and preferably secured in place by the crush arm. Crimping the bead includes squeezing of the actuator handle. During a first portion of such actuation, a cam portion of the actuator handle cases the pincer members to impart a lateral compressive force to a lateral portion of the bead element sufficient to collapse the bead element in a lateral direction. During a subsequent second portion of the single actuation cycle, the crush arm is caused to impart a longitudinal compressive force about a top portion of the bead element sufficient to compress the collapsed bead element in a longitudinal direction. | 09-24-2009 |
20090242117 | Bead positioning tool - The present invention is directed towards a bead positioning device comprising two tools used position small embellishments onto jewelry, scrapbooks, containers and clothing. Each tool has an adhesive member and a positioning member. The positioning member comprises a plurality of prongs. In use, the embellishment is secured to the adhesive member of the first tool. Once secured, the positioning member of the second tool is used to remove the embellishment from the first tool and position the embellishment onto the desired location. | 10-01-2009 |
20100200436 | Portable storage container for small objects such as beads - A design board container enabling the arrangement and temporary positional securement of beading elements is provided. The container includes a base member and a lid member preferably in hinged relationship with one another. The base member and lid member include a design liner and lid liner, respectively, formed of a resiliently deformable and preferably compressible material. The liners are preferably substantially planar, i.e., a flat surface, so as to allow for free form designing unconstrained by preset channels. By closing the container, the lid surface engages the design surface and beading elements such that the beading elements deform the design liner and are positionally secured between the design liner and the lid liner. The surfaces of the lid liner and the design liner preferably comprise gripping members, such as filamentary or hair-like elements. | 08-12-2010 |
20130140396 | Wire Dispenser for Beading - Wire used for beading is coiled on a rotably mounted reel in a dispenser having a reel brake bearing against the reel with the wire passing through a channel as extended to the exterior of the dispenser with the wire frictionally engaging both the walls of the channel and a resilient element pressing against the wire to modulate the force required to withdraw the wire from the dispenser to a value which is high enough to prevent spontaneous unwinding of the wire from around the reel but still allowing easy removal from the dispenser when desired. | 06-06-2013 |
20140202226 | Closing Tool for Crimp Cover - A crimp cover closing tool is provided with a pair of curved force transmitting members joined at a fulcrum and forming opposed jaws. The jaws each have an angularly offset tip with interiorly disposed opposable spherical forming surfaces, a radius of curvature of about 2.1 mm and a depth of about 1.5 mm. The overall length of the tool is about 130 mm. The opposable spherical forming surfaces are spaced from the fulcrum by a distance of at least 30 mm. The tip of the forming tool has an angle of offset of about 30°. | 07-24-2014 |
20140202579 | Mandrel for Wrapping of Cabochons - A mandrel is provided with a plurality of oval sections of varying circumference formed thereabout. The circumference of a first oval section is between about 1.75″ and about 2.6″. The circumference of a second oval section is about 0.2″ to 0.9″ greater than the circumference of the first section. The circumference of a third oval section is about 0.2″ to 0.9″ greater than the circumference of the second section. | 07-24-2014 |
20140202904 | Needle Case for Beading Needles - A case for beading needles comprising a thermoplastic container is provided with a hinged lid. The case has a tray portion filled with penetrable needle retention medium into which needles may be inserted as desired and spaced widely. The tray portion comprises a thermoplastic housing section divided into two sections: a needle retention section and an open needle grasping section disposed above the needle retention section. The needle retention section has a width of at least about 1.25 inches. The housing section comprises a backing plate and has a transparent cover section removably hinged to the housing section. The cover section can be either pivoted rearwardly to form a stand, allowing the housing section to be maintained upright on a flat surface, or completely removed and reversed, allowing the upper portion of the backing plate to bear against a front wall of the cover. | 07-24-2014 |
20140310919 | Crimping Bead with Plunger - A two piece crimping bead is provided with a through bore. The through bore is adapted to have beading cable passed therethrough. The through bore has a diameter of between 0.15 and 0.35 inch. The crimping bead also has a crimping bore intersecting the through bore and a crimping plunger disposed therein in interference fit with the crimping bore. | 10-23-2014 |
20150351504 | Bi-Stable Support Fixture for Addition of Pendants to Jewelry Chains - A support fixture is provided for holding chain to facilitate addition of pendants thereto. The fixture comprises a polymeric base and a pair of inter-nesting uprights pivotably mounted therein at opposed ends of the base. The uprights can be stably disposed in either an upright usage configuration or a nested horizontal configuration. The base has an upper surface with a generally planar periphery and a major centrally located recess formed therein. The upper extremity of each upright is provided with a retention pin and a padded clamp. Each clamp is formed from a “7” shaped portion and an inverted “L”-shaped arm pivotably joined thereto, with horizontal portions of the “L” shaped arm and the “7” shaped portion defining the jaws of the clamp. A resilient spring is disposed between a vertical leg of the “7” shaped portion and a vertical leg of the inverted “L” shaped arm. | 12-10-2015 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20100060736 | Vehicle Interior Classification System And Method - A vehicle interior classification system and method in accordance with the present invention determines a classification relating to the interior of the vehicle, such as the occupancy status of a vehicle seat or the state of alertness of a vehicle driver, from one or more images of an appropriate portion of the interior of the vehicle acquired with an image capture device. The acquired images are preferably processed to limit the dynamic range of the images to obtain a resultant image which can comprise one or more regions of interest which are less than the total field of view of the image capture device. The resultant images are processed to extract information about features in the image and, in one embodiment, this processing is achieved with a two-dimensional complex discrete wavelet transform which produces a set of coefficients corresponding to the presence and/or location of the features in the resultant image. The set of coefficients produced with such a transform is potentially quite large and can be reduced, through described techniques, to a subset of the total number of coefficients, the members of the subset being selected for their ability to discriminate between the classifications defined for the system. By selecting a subset of the possible coefficients, computational requirements are reduced, as are hardware requirements in the system, such as memory. The selected set of coefficients (whether comprising all of the coefficients or a subset thereof) are provided to a classifier which processes the coefficients with a set of calibration vectors, that were determined when the system was calibrated, to determine the most probable classification for the portion of the vehicle interior. | 03-11-2010 |
20140043473 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DYNAMICALLY CALIBRATING VEHICULAR CAMERAS - A method of dynamically ascertaining the alignment of a vehicular camera. The method involves acquiring a sequence of images provided by the camera whilst the vehicle is in motion. For each range of steering angles, the method (i) selects a plurality of feature points in the images, (ii) tracks a motion trajectory for each selected feature point, and (iii) determines a vanishing point in the image plane based on the tracked motion trajectories. The method determines a vanishing line in the image plane based on a locus of these vanishing points and determines the alignment of the camera based on the position of a central vanishing point (corresponding to the zero degree angle) and the vanishing line. | 02-13-2014 |
20140063254 | METHOD FOR CALIBRATING VEHICULAR VISION SYSTEM - A method for calibrating a vehicular vision system includes providing a camera at a vehicle, with the camera having a field of view. Images are captured with the camera and a set of resultant images are acquired for a classification. Information is extracted related to image features in the set of resultant images, and an appropriate subset of coefficients is determined. For each classification, a classification vector of at least one appropriate weight is stored that corresponds to the determined subset of coefficients. | 03-06-2014 |
20140169627 | IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD FOR DETECTING OBJECTS USING RELATIVE MOTION - An image based obstacle detection method. A camera mounted on a vehicle provides a set of image frames whilst the vehicle is in motion. The image frames define an image plane having a vertical aspect and a horizontal aspect. The relevancy of an object is determined by (i) selecting first and second feature points from the object that are spaced apart vertically in a first image frame; (ii) tracking the positions of the first and second feature points over at least a second image frame; and (iii) deciding the object to be relevant if the first and second feature points move dissimilar distances in physical space, within a tolerance, and deciding the object to be irrelevant otherwise. The motion of relevant objects is then estimated to determine if any relevant object is likely to become an obstacle to the vehicle. | 06-19-2014 |
20140247352 | MULTI-CAMERA DYNAMIC TOP VIEW VISION SYSTEM - A dynamic image stitching system for stitching images captured by multiple cameras of a vision system of a vehicle includes a first camera disposed at a vehicle and having a first field of view exterior the vehicle and a second camera disposed at the vehicle and having a second field of view exterior the vehicle. The first and second fields of view at least partially overlap. A processor is operable to process image data captured by the first and second cameras. The processor processes captured image data to determine characteristics of features or objects present in the overlapping region of the first and second fields of view. The processor is operable to adjust a stitching algorithm responsive to a determination of a difference between a characteristic of a feature as captured by the first camera and the characteristic of the feature as captured by the second camera. | 09-04-2014 |
20150049193 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DYNAMICALLY CALIBRATING VEHICULAR CAMERAS - A method of dynamically calibrating a given camera relative to a reference camera of a vehicle includes identifying an overlapping region in an image frame provided by the given camera and an image frame provided by the reference camera and selecting at least a portion of an object in the overlapped region of the reference image frame. Expected pixel positions of the selected object portion in the given image frame is determined based on the location of the selected object portion in the reference image frame, and pixel positions of the selected object portion are located as detected in the given image frame. An alignment of the given camera is determined based on a comparison of the pixel positions of the selected object portion in the given image frame to the expected pixel positions of the selected object portion in the given image frame. | 02-19-2015 |
20150178576 | VEHICLE VISION SYSTEM WITH ENHANCED PEDESTRIAN DETECTION - A vision system of a vehicle includes a camera disposed at a vehicle and having a field of view that encompasses first and second regions exterior of the vehicle. The camera captures image data that includes a first set of image data representative of the first region of the field of view and a second set of image data representative of the second region of the field of view. An image processor processes the first set of image data to detect a pedestrian present in the first region based on a first predetermined orientation of a pedestrian. The image processor processes the second set of image data to detect a pedestrian present in the second region based on a second predetermined orientation of a pedestrian. | 06-25-2015 |
20150179074 | VEHICLE VISION SYSTEM WITH CROSS TRAFFIC DETECTION - A vision system of a vehicle includes a camera disposed at a vehicle and having a field of view exterior of the vehicle. The camera may have a wide angle lens with more distortion at the side regions of the field of view than at a center region of the field of view. An image processor processes captured image data to determine gradient information of captured image data, and responsive to processing gradient information, determines a potential cross traffic object at one of the side regions of the field of view. The image processor processes multiple frames of captured image data to determine movement of an upper portion and a lower portion of a gradient of the determined potential cross traffic object and, responsive to such processing, determines if the detected potential cross traffic object is a cross traffic object that is moving into the path of the vehicle. | 06-25-2015 |
20150312565 | METHOD FOR CALIBRATING VEHICULAR VISION SYSTEM - A method for calibrating a vehicular vision system includes providing a camera at a vehicle, with the camera having a field of view. Images are captured with the camera and a set of resultant images are acquired for a classification. Information is extracted related to image features in the set of resultant images, and an appropriate subset of coefficients is determined. For each classification, a classification vector of at least one appropriate weight is stored that corresponds to the determined subset of coefficients. The determined subset of coefficients is determined by processing sets of coefficients produced from a selection of calibration images and determining a subset of coefficients which acceptably discriminate between defined classifications. A set of resultant images is acquired by limiting the dynamic range of acquired images to obtain resultant images that include at least one region of interest. | 10-29-2015 |