Image cut-away/display system

• US 20020015047A1
• Filed: 06/01/2001
• Published: 02/07/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fuji Heavy Industries Limited (Subaru Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Heavy Industries Limited (Subaru Corp.)
• Inventors: Okada, Hiroshi, Yokokura, Shuichi, Takatsuka, Takeshi
• Granted Patent: US 7,002,600 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/620
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

An image cut-away/display system is disclosed. Images are taken in continuous view areas by several cameras, etc. The images are combined for forming a single wide-area view image. View-point data is generated for each of users. Images are cut away for each user from the single wide-area view image based on the view-point data for each user. The cut-away images are displayed on a head-mount display for each user at a view point of each user.

Claims

1. An image cut-away/display system comprising:

a plurality of image taking means for taking images in continuous view areas;

image combining means for combining the images taken by the image taking means to form a single wide-area view image;

view-point data generating means for generating view-point data for each of users;

image cut-away means for cutting away images for each user from the single wide-area view image based on the view-point data for each user; and

image displaying means for displaying the cut-away images for each user at a view point of each user.

2. The image cut-away/display system according to claim 1, wherein the image taking means include a plurality of cameras arranged around a reference center.

3. The image cut-away/display system according to claim 1, wherein the image displaying means includes a head-mount display by which the images from the image cut-away means and actual views are overlapped with each other.

4. The image cut-away/display system according to claim 1, wherein the view-point generating means includes a head-motion tracker for tracking motion of a head of each user or an eyeball positional detector for tracking eye movement of each user.