Weight and/or Measurement Reduction Preview System

The invention disclosed herein is a modification in design and application of my invention as disclosed in Ser. Nos. 366,372 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,467,349, and 466,973 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,486,774, which are improvements of my prior invention, U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,012, dated Apr. 7, 1981. The prior art discussed in that patent pending is still considered to be the most relevant prior art together with Dyson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,134.

This invention relates to a system of the type enabling a subject using the system to view a picture showing the subject as she (or he) will appear if her body is physically reproportioned. For instance, such a system when used in a weight loss clinic will allow a customer to sample the effect that a certain amount of weight loss will have on her appearance prior to losing that amount of weight. The system when used in a figure salon will allow a customer to sample the effect that the reduction of, and/or the toning of certain areas of the body such as the bust, waist, hips, thighs, etc. would have on her appearance prior to the reduction or and/or the toning of those certain areas. In either instance the system will have the ability to produce an instant "before and after" picture of the customer (i.e., before the weight loss, after the weight loss) so that the customer can better evaluate the effect a prescribed exercise and/or diet program will have on her appearance before commiting herself to that program.

My invention is broadly directed to a system for displaying to a customer a view of that customer as though the customer had actually lost a certain amount of weight or reduced and/or toned certain areas of her body; which system comprises means to record and display a full figure image of the customer; means to vary the dimensions of the image; and means to display the reproportioned image. In the preferred embodiment, the system comprises a video camera, a frame grabber, a CPU, an image buffer, a memory, and a video screen. The video camera takes the image of the customer which is digitized by the frame grabber, stored in memory and ultimately displayed on the video screen. Through use of the CPU, the stored image is varied along the horizontal and/or vertical axes to provide a re-proportioned image of the customer. Preferably, this is accomplished by stretching and/or shrinking rasters horizontally and/or vertically along the full height of the image, based on a calculated stretch and/or shrink factor. For example, I can scale the image which is stored in memory to reflect any bust, waist, hip, thigh, etc. measurement, and/or body weight that the customer hopes to attain by following the exercise and/or diet program offered by the figure salon or weight loss clinic.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram representing the preferred embodiment of my invention.

FIG. 2a is a schematic representing the first or "before" image.

FIG. 2b is a schematic representing the second or "after" image.

Referring to FIG. 1, a video camera 10 such as A JVC model KY1900CH communicates with a frame grabber 12 such as a Datacube 150. The camera 10 records the customer 14 to provide the first or "before" image, see FIG. 2a. The image is stored in a memory 16 such as a DSD 880 via a CPU 18 such as a DEC LSI 11/23. The image from the memory 16 is input to an image buffer 20 such as a Datacube 150. The image in the image buffer 20 is scaled and the output is displayed on the video screen 22 such as a Conrac 5711 as the second or "after" image, see FIG. 2b.

The control of the CPU 18 is accomplished through instructions. The instructions are written in terms of the particular mode of operation desired. The computer thus has stored in its memory the programs or routines corresponding to each mode or operation of the computer. It is well known to those skilled in the art, that the computer comprises suitable controls, storage and computational units for performing the various arithmatic and logical functions on data which it processes in digital form. Any standard computer can be used for the instructions. The routines are not described in detail, since they can be written in any desired notations, formats or sequences, depending upon the particular program being utilized, computer language, etc. For the specific computer of the preferred embodiment, the manufacturer's handbooks sets forth the necessary program which includes the sequence of internal interconnections which have been added by the preparation and loading of the program into the internal memory of the computer.

Referring to FIG. 1, in the operation of the invention, after all components are actuated, the customer 14 is viewed by the video camera 10. The video signals from the video camera 10 are digitized by the frame grabber 24 and displayed on the video screen 22 as the first or "before" image, see FIG. 2a. The image in the frame grabber is composed of horizontal lines of information called "rasters". The image which may be in black and white, or color is stored in memory 16 raster by raster. The customers present statistics such as height, weight, bust, waist, hip, etc. measurements are fed to the CPU 18. The customers height and desired statistics such as weight, bust, waist, hip, etc. measurements are fed to the CPU 18. The CPU 18 calculates a horizontal and/or vertical stretch and/or shrink factor to be applied to the stored image so that the stored image is reproportioned from the present statistics to the desired statistics. The horizontal and/or vertical stretch and/or shrink factor is applied to the stored image on a raster by raster basis and the stretched or squeezed result is displayed on the video screen 22 as the second or "after" image, see FIG. 2b. More particularly, starting at a specified raster of the image each raster is stretched and/or shrunk horizontally and/or vertically by the stretch and/or shrink factor and a new raster calculated.

Two alternatives may be used in this step. First, a simple repartitioning of the raster using fractions of pixels according to the stretch and/or shrink factor; or secondly, a low pass filtering and sampling according to the pixel spacing, preferably, two dimensional filtering (incorporating the rasters above and below the current raster) should contribute less distortion to the stretched and/or shrunk image. Each new computer raster is loaded into the display device on top of the customer inage and the next rasters are computed in sequence until the re-proportioned image is complete as shown in FIG. 2b. Alternately, the first image can be input in digitized form into the image buffer and not initially displayed. The second image is overlayed electronically onto the first image and the re-proportioned image is scanned out and displayed. A separate buffer may be used to store the first image and the images from both buffers displayed alternately or simultaneously.

The following is an illustration of a specific use of my invention.

Step 1. A customer is positioned in front of the video camera 10.

Step 2. The video output from the camera 12 is routed to a frame grabber 24. The frame grabber converts the image into digital form, and sends the digital data representing the image to the image buffer 20 which is capable of holding and displaying two full images.

Step 3. The operator of the system is then prompted via a menu display for the following information: the sex, the height, the current weight and/or measurements, and the desired weight and/or measurements of the customer. These dimensions are entered into the CPU 18 via the keyboard for computation of the necessary stretch and shrink factors, used to stretch and shrink the customer's originally captured image to the desired form.

Step 4. From the entered dimensions (i.e. for women: bust, waist, hips, etc. measurements), the necessary stretch and shrink factors are computed, one factor for every horizontal raster line of video information in the image.

Step 5. The customer's original image is then stretched and squeezed via a software program, horizontal line by horizontal line, from the head area downwardly as dictated by the computed stretch and squeeze factors. Two alternatives may be used in this step:

(1) A simple repartioning of the raster using fractions of pixels according to the stretch and/or shrink factor, or

(2) A low-pass filtering and sampling according to the new pixel spacing, preferably two dimensional filtering (incorporating the rasters above and below the current raster) contributes less un-wanted distortion to the stretched and/or shrunk image.

As each horizontal raster line undergoes transformation by the software program, a new and corresponding raster line of digital video information is created. This new raster is stored in the second half of the image buffer at a location corresponding to the location of the original raster line, in the first half of the image buffer, from which it was computed. This process is repeated for all raster lines from the head downwardly. Those raster lines near transitions in the image from regions of reproportionment to regions that will remain identical to the original image are handled in one of two different ways:

(1) The newly computed data is mixed back with data from the original image at the corresponding location so that a smooth blending and transition takes place in the newly computed image from the original form to the new form.

(2) The blending is performed on the stretch and/or shrink factors so smooth transitions of stretch and/or shrink occur from regions of change to regions of no change.

Step 6. The new image, now fully computed and stored in the undisplayed half of the image buffer, is now displayed. The effect is that the customer has taken on the new dimensions entered to the machine in step 3. The operator of the device may now elect to instantly switch between the customer's original image and the newly computed and shaped image, both of which are now stored in the image buffer, and in so doing give the customer, in an instant, a preview of the "before" and "after" picture of herself at the new dimensions.

The software set forth below is an example of the specific steps used in the system and process of my invention. ##SPC1## ##SPC2##