Information processing apparatus, method, and program

• US 10,430,967 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2016
• Issued: 10/01/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Hirota, Yuichiro, Tateno, Keisuke, Suzuki, Masahiro, Kotake, Daisuke, Katayama, Akihiro, Fujiki, Masakazu
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Fayyaz
• Application Number:
  US15/574,814
• Publication Number:
  US 20180144497A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,236 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/011 Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality blind teaching G09B21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/012 Head tracking input arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0325 using a plurality of light emitters or reflectors or a plurality of detectors forming a reference frame from which to derive the orientation of the object, e.g. by triangulation or on the basis of reference deformation in the picked up image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30204 Marker
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30244 Camera pose
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/73 using feature-based methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/245 by locating a pattern; Special marks for positioning
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/20 in augmented reality scenes

Abstract

In order to shorten the time required for a setting operation of features, an information processing apparatus includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire features used for deriving a positional attitude of an imaging device from an image captured by the imaging device, a setting unit configured to set a plurality of partial regions included in the image as a plurality of candidate regions to which a feature is to be added, an evaluation unit configured to evaluate the plurality of set candidate regions, a determination unit configured to determine a position and/or an orientation of a feature to be newly added based on the plurality of evaluated candidate regions, and an output unit configured to output the determined position and/or the orientation.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus comprising:

one or more processors that operate to;

acquire features used for deriving a positional attitude of an imaging device from an image captured by the imaging device;

set a plurality of partial regions included in the image as a plurality of candidate regions to which a feature is to be added;

evaluate the plurality of set candidate regions;

determine a position and/or an orientation of a feature to be newly added based on the plurality of evaluated candidate regions; and

output the determined position and/or the orientation.

2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the one or more processors further operate to acquire a distribution of the features in the image based on the acquired features.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the one or more processors determine the position and/or the orientation so that the distribution becomes more uniform.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the one or more processors further operate to count a number of the acquired features for each of the candidate regions and determine the position and/or the orientation of the feature to be added so that the distribution of the features in the image becomes more uniform, based on the number of the features counted for each of the candidate regions.

5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the one or more processors further operate to acquire three-dimensional positions of the features, and

wherein the one or more processors determine the position and/or the orientation of the feature to be added so that a distribution of the three-dimensional positions of the features becomes more uniform.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the one or more processors further operate to determine the position and/or the orientation of the feature to be added so that the distribution of the acquired features is widened.

7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the one or more processors further operate to determine the position and/or the orientation of the feature to be added so that precision of the positional attitude of the imaging apparatus derived based on a distribution acquired by newly adding a feature to the distribution of the acquired features is improved.

8. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the one or more processors further operate to acquire an evaluation value for the distribution of the features.

9. The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the one or more processors operate to determine the position and/or the orientation of the feature to be added so that the evaluation value is increased.

10. The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the one or more processors further operate to acquire a target value of the evaluation value, and

wherein the one or more processors operate to determine a position and/or an orientation of a feature in which the evaluation value exceeds the target value as the position and/or the orientation of the feature to be added.

11. The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the one or more processors operate to determine a position and/or an orientation of a feature in which an improvement amount of the evaluation value is greater than a predetermined value as the position and/or the orientation of the feature to be added.

12. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the one or more processors operate to determine that the determined position and/or the orientation is a position to which a feature is to be newly added,

wherein the one or more processors further operate to set a region to which the feature can be added from an actual scene, and

wherein the one or more processors operate to determine the position to which the feature is to be added from the set region.

13. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the one or more processors operate to determine that the determined position and/or the orientation is a position to which a feature is to be newly added,

wherein the one or more processors further operate to set a region to which the feature is not added from an actual scene, and

wherein the one or more processors operate to determine the position to which the feature is to be added from among regions excluding the set region.

14. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the one or more processors superpose information relating to the position and/or the orientation of the feature to be added onto an image captured by the imaging device and display the resultant image on a display.

15. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the imaging device is provided on a head-mounted display apparatus.

16. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the one or more processors further operate to derive the positional attitude of the imaging device based on the features.

17. An information processing apparatus comprising:

one or more processors that operate to;

acquire features which are included in an actual scene captured by an imaging device and used for deriving a positional attitude of the imaging device;

determine a feature to be newly deleted, from among features included in the actual scene, based on a distribution of the acquired features; and

output an image of the actual scene including one or more indicators showing where the determined feature has been deleted from the actual scene.

18. An information processing method comprising:

acquiring features used for deriving a positional attitude of an imaging device from an image captured by the imaging device;

setting a plurality of partial regions included in the image as a plurality of candidate regions to which a feature is to be added;

evaluating the plurality of set candidate regions;

determining a position and/or an orientation of a feature to be newly added based on the plurality of evaluated candidate regions; and

outputting the determined position and/or the orientation.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing at least one program for causing a computer to execute an information processing method, the information processing method comprising:

acquiring features used for deriving a positional attitude of an imaging device from an image captured by the imaging device;

setting a plurality of partial regions included in the image as a plurality of candidate regions to which a feature is to be added;

evaluating the plurality of set candidate regions;

determining a position and/or an orientation of a feature to be newly added based on the plurality of evaluated candidate regions; and

outputting the determined position and/or the orientation.