Method and apparatus for coding a sectional video image

• US 20060139466A1
• Filed: 09/22/2005
• Published: 06/29/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Tandberg Telecom AS (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Johansen, Tom-Ivar
• Granted Patent: US 7,679,648 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/240.990
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/124 Quantisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/162 User input
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/17 the unit being an image region, e.g. an object

Abstract

The present invention utilizes video compression techniques in providing multi display and user control of picture layout with a single non-mechanical camera. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a subsection of interest within a general view captured by the camera is coded based on the prediction of the main picture. In one aspect of the embodiment, scaling of the predicted pixel values in the subsection to match with the corresponding raw pixel data of extended resolution is carried out before subtracting the prediction from the raw data to provide the residual in the coding process. In a second aspect, the frame rate and the number of quantization intervals are increased when coding the subsection relative to the coding of the general view.

Claims

1. A method for providing a sectional video view with a controllable zoom, pan and tilt defined by a boundary within a general video view captured by a first camera of an end-point by consecutively capturing video images of the general view which are being processed by a coding process, creating a first coded video signal representing the general view, at least generating a predicted video image of a first current video image and subtracting the predicted video image from the first current video image,

characterized in that the coding process further includes the steps of:

receiving a control signal defining the boundary within the general video view,

extracting a first set of pixel values lying within the boundary in the first current video image or in a second current video image captured by a second camera,

creating a residual of the sectional video image by subtracting a second set of pixel values from said first set of pixel values,

creating a second coded video signal representing the sectional video view by further compressing the residual according to the coding process.

2. A method according claim 1, characterized in that said second set of pixel values are pixel values extracted from the predicted video image lying within said boundary.

3. A method according claim 1, characterized in that it further includes the steps of:

transmitting the first and the second coded video signal to a receiving end-point,

decoding the first and the second coded video signal with a decoding process corresponding to the coding process, resulting in the general video view and the sectional video view.

4. A method according to claim 3, characterized in that it further includes the step of:

displaying the general video view and the sectional video view on said receiving end-point.

5. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that the coding process further includes at least one of the following steps:

scaling said first set of pixel values to match with said second set of pixel values,

scaling said second set of pixel values to match with said first set of pixel values.

6. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that the coding process further includes at least one of the following steps:

adjusting a second frame rate associated with said second coded video signal relative to a first frame rate associated with the first coded video signal,

adjusting a second number of quantization intervals associated with said second coded video signal relative to a first number of quantization intervals associated with the first coded video signal.

7. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that said control signal originates from a first selection device connected to the transmitting end-point.

8. A method according to claim 7, characterized in that the selection device is a remote control.

9. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that said control signal originates from a second selection device connected to said receiving end-point.

10. A method according to claim 9, characterized in that the selection device is a remote control.

11. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that said control signal is provided by a camera tracking mechanism in the transmitting end-point.

12. Apparatus for providing a sectional video view with a controllable zoom, pan and tilt defined by a boundary within a general video view captured by a first camera of an end-point by consecutively capturing video images of the general view which are being processed by a coding process, creating a first coded video signal representing the general view, at least generating a predicted video image of a first current video image and subtracting the predicted video image from the first current video image, characterized in that the apparatus comprises:

means for receiving a control signal defining the boundary within the general video view,

means for extracting a first set of pixel values lying within the boundary in the first current video image or in a second current video image captured by a second camera,

means for creating a residual of the sectional video image by subtracting a second set of pixel values from said first set of pixel values,

means for creating a second coded video signal representing the sectional video view by further compressing the residual according to the coding process.