Methods and Systems for Transformation Between Eye Images and Digital Images

Abstract

A processing device receives signals associated with nerve impulses that are transmitted to the visual cortex of a subject in response to one or more visual stimuli provided to at least one eye of the subject. The processing device processes the received signals and generates digital image data from the processed received signals that is representative of the visual perception, by the subject, of the one or more visual stimuli. In certain embodiments, the processing device processes digital image data that is representative of a scene to convert the digital image data to a sequence of nerve impulses, and provides the sequence of nerve impulses to the visual cortex of a subject such that the subject visually perceives the scene.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for generating a mapping that maps between nerve impulses and image data, the method comprising the steps of:
 a) displaying a first image to a subject having at least one eye and a brain having a visual processing region, the first image having corresponding first image data;   b) receiving, by at least one processor in communication with the visual processing region, first signals associated with nerve impulses transmitted to the visual processing region in response to the subject viewing the first image with the at least one eye;   c) modifying the first image to produce a second image, the second image having corresponding second image data;   d) displaying the second image to the subject;   e) receiving, by the at least one processor, second signals associated with nerve impulses transmitted to the visual processing region in response to the subject viewing the second image with the at least one eye; and   f) comparing a change between the first image data and the second image data with a change between the first signals and the second signals to identify matches between at least some of the signals and at least some of the image data.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 g) repeating steps c) through f), wherein for each repetition of step c) the first image is modified differently than as was modified in the previous execution of step c), and wherein step c) through f) are repeated until there is a one-to-one matching between each element of a set of image data and a corresponding nerve impulse, the set of image data including the second image data.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein for each execution of step c) the first image is modified with incrementally larger changes. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising:
 h) storing the one-to-one matching as data that is descriptive of the mapping between nerve impulses and image data.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the data that is descriptive of the mapping between nerve impulses includes nerve impulse encoding values. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the data that is descriptive of the mapping between nerve impulses and image data is in the form of a configuration table that includes attributes of the image data in the set of image data. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the attributes include one or more of: color, intensity, position, or a nerve impulse encoding value. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 g) performing steps a) through f) using a new first image that is different from the first image.   
     
     
         9 . A computer usable non-transitory storage medium having a computer program embodied thereon for causing a suitably programmed system to generate a mapping that maps between nerve impulses and image data, by performing the following steps when such program is executed on the system, the steps comprising:
 a) displaying a first image to a subject having at least one eye and a brain having a visual processing region, the first image having corresponding first image data;   b) receiving, by at least one processor in communication with the visual processing region, first signals associated with nerve impulses transmitted to the visual processing region in response to the subject viewing the first image with the at least one eye;   c) modifying the first image to produce a second image, the second image having corresponding second image data;   d) displaying the second image to the subject;   e) receiving, by the at least one processor, second signals associated with nerve impulses transmitted to the visual processing region in response to the subject viewing the second image with the at least one eye; and   f) comparing a change between the first image data and the second image data with a change between the first signals and the second signals to identify matches between at least some of the signals and at least some of the image data.   
     
     
         10 . The computer usable non-transitory storage medium of  claim 9 , the steps further comprising:
 g) repeating steps c) through f), wherein for each repetition of step c) the first image is modified differently than as was modified in the previous execution of step c), and wherein step c) through f) are repeated until there is a one-to-one matching between each element of a set of image data and a corresponding nerve impulse, the set of image data including the second image data.   
     
     
         11 . The computer usable non-transitory storage medium of  claim 10 , wherein for each execution of step c) the first image is modified with incrementally larger changes. 
     
     
         12 . The computer usable non-transitory storage medium of  claim 10 , the steps further comprising:
 h) storing the one-to-one matching as data that is descriptive of the mapping between nerve impulses and image data.   
     
     
         13 . The computer usable non-transitory storage medium of  claim 12 , wherein the data that is descriptive of the mapping between nerve impulses includes nerve impulse encoding values. 
     
     
         14 . The computer usable non-transitory storage medium of  claim 12 , wherein the data that is descriptive of the mapping between nerve impulses and image data is in the form of a configuration table that includes attributes of the image data in the set of image data. 
     
     
         15 . The computer usable non-transitory storage medium of  claim 14 , wherein the attributes include one or more of: color, intensity, position, or a nerve impulse encoding value. 
     
     
         16 . The computer usable non-transitory storage medium of  claim 9 , the steps further comprising:
 g) performing steps a) through f) using a new first image that is different from the first image.   
     
     
         17 . A method for generating a mapping that maps between nerve impulses and image data, the method comprising:
 displaying a series of images, that includes a first image, to a subject having at least one eye and a brain having a visual processing region, each image in the series of images having corresponding image data,
 wherein for any given image in the series of images after the first image, the given image is a modified version of the image preceding the given image in the series of images; 
   for each image in the series of images displayed to the subject, receiving, by at least one processor in communication with the visual processing region, signals associated with nerve impulses transmitted to the visual processing region in response to the subject viewing the image with the at least one eye; and   for each pair of consecutive images in the series of images, comparing a change between the image data of a first image of the pair of consecutive images and the image data of a second image of the pair of consecutive images with a change between the signals received in response to the subject viewing the first image and the signals received in response to the subject viewing the second image to generate a one-to-one matching between each element of a set of image data and a corresponding nerve impulse, the set of image data including the image data of at least one of the images in the series of images.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , further comprising:
 storing the one-to-one matching as data that is descriptive of the mapping between nerve impulses and image data.   
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the data that is descriptive of the mapping between nerve impulses and image data includes attributes of the image data in the set of image data. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the images in the series of images are modified with incrementally larger changes when progressing from the first image in the series of images to a last image in the series of images.