Apparatus and method for measuring distances
First Claim
1. A distance measuring method comprising:
- a first step of detecting an object that exists at the edges of a road or on the road from an image input from one camera, detecting the detected position of said object in said image and detecting a relative positional relation between said object and said edges of the road;
a second step of detecting a three-dimensional road structure from said image;
a third step of determining the position of said object on said three-dimensional road structure based on a relative positional relation between the object in said image and the road edges; and
a fourth step of calculating the distance from said one camera to said object in the real space.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention detects distances between cars through image processing. A car ahead is detected from an image taken by one camera and a relative positional relation between the detected vehicle and road edges is detected. On the other hand, a three-dimensional road structure is reconstructed from the image taken by one camera. Then, taking into account the relative positional relation in the image between the vehicle and road edges, the position of the vehicle on the reconstructed three-dimensional road structure is determined. Then, the distance from the camera to the vehicle in the real space is measured through arithmetic operations. By focusing the range of performing image processing in one image, it is possible to reduce the amount of data handled.
-
Citations
23 Claims
-
1. A distance measuring method comprising:
-
a first step of detecting an object that exists at the edges of a road or on the road from an image input from one camera, detecting the detected position of said object in said image and detecting a relative positional relation between said object and said edges of the road;
a second step of detecting a three-dimensional road structure from said image;
a third step of determining the position of said object on said three-dimensional road structure based on a relative positional relation between the object in said image and the road edges; and
a fourth step of calculating the distance from said one camera to said object in the real space. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
-
-
8. A distance measuring method comprising:
-
a first step of detecting an object that exists at the edges of a road or on the road from images input from one camera that consecutively takes pictures in the direction opposite to the direction in which the car is headed, detecting the position of said detected object in said image and detecting a relative positional relation between said object and said edges of the road;
a second step of detecting a three-dimensional road structure from said image;
a third step of determining the position of said object on said three-dimensional road structure based on a relative positional relation between the object in said image taken by said one camera and the road edges; and
a fourth step of calculating the distance from said one camera to said object in the real space, wherein said second step comprising the steps of;
assuming that the road is horizontal at locations sufficiently close to said one camera, measuring the distance from said one camera to road edges located within the range sufficiently close to the camera and thereby detecting the positions of the road edge points in the image, determining the positions of the road edge points in the real space corresponding to the detected road edge points and continuing such processing, and on the other hand, acquiring information on the amount of movement of the own car in the real space from a past reference time point to the present moment from a sensor mounted on the own car, connecting the road edge points in the real space corresponding to said past reference time point and the road edge points in the real space corresponding to said present moment based on said information of the amount of movement acquired from said sensor, repeating such connection processing and thereby reconstructing a three-dimensional road structure.
-
-
9. A distance measuring apparatus comprising:
-
an object position detection section that detects an object that exists at the edges of a road or on the road from an image input from one camera, detects the position of the detected position of said object in said image and detects a relative positional relation between said object and said edges of the road;
a road structure detection section that detects a three-dimensional road structure from said image; and
a distance calculation section that determines the position of said object on said three-dimensional road structure based on a relative positional relation between the object in said image and the road edges and calculates the distance from said one camera to said object in the real space.
-
-
10. A distance measuring method comprising the steps of:
-
focusing the range of searching an object based on an image input from a car-mounted camera on an area in which said object is likely to exist;
detecting the position of said object in said image within said search range; and
calculating the distance to said vehicle in the real space based on the detected position of said object.
-
-
11. A distance measuring method comprising the steps of:
-
detecting the right and left edges of a road on which an object exists based on an image input from a car-mounted camera and focusing the range of searching the object taking into account the detected positions of the road edges and height of said object;
detecting the position of said object in said image within said focused search range; and
calculating the distance to said vehicle in the real space based on the detected position of said object. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
-
-
21. A distance measuring apparatus comprising:
-
a search range extraction section that focuses the search range on the area on a road in which an object exists from an image input from a car-mounted camera;
a vehicle position detection section that detects the position of the object in the image within said search range; and
an inter-vehicle distance calculation section that calculates the distance to the vehicle in the real space based on said detected position. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23)
-
Specification