Israel’s Yissum Research Development Company, the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University (HU) of Jerusalem, has signed a non-exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with leading software company Adobe Systems for the development and commercialization of an imaging technology that improves digital image processing.

The technology, invented by Dr. Raanan Fattal from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at HU, is called Edge Avoiding Wavelets and enables better and faster detail enhancement and preserves edges when sharpening digital images.

Image processing applications invest considerable computing power in attempts to enhance details in digital images, and to enable users to accurately demarcate a specific object within the image.

Current state-of-the art technologies for enabling such image processing functions are overly sophisticated and suffer from various limitations. The new Edge Avoiding Wavelets technology avoids pixels from both sides of an edge, thus achieving a sharper, halo-free image. Its fast performance accelerates various computational photography applications by a factor of more than one order of magnitude.

Hebrew University researchers have developed a diversified portfolio of innovative imaging technologies including 3D visualization manipulations, real-time pattern matching, colorization of still images and movies and animation techniques, all of which are available for licensing.