Method for detecting object traveling direction

• US 20060193495A1
• Filed: 08/26/2004
• Published: 08/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions Co., Ltd. (Winbond Electronics Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Kurokawa, Natsuki
• Granted Patent: US 7,346,193 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/107
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/20 Analysis of motion motion estimation for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/43, H04N19/51

Abstract

An object of the invention is to provide a target travel direction detecting method capable of detecting the travel direction of efficiently detecting the travel direction of a target by using a small amount of information.

The target travel direction detecting method according to the invention generates a lightness image from each of the two color images picked up at predetermined time intervals and causes a template of n by n 105 to scan the lightness image at time t to detect a position where the target is present. Next, the values of pixels around the pixel of the position where the target is detected are stored into the template 105. The template 105 storing the pixel values is used to scan the lightness image at time t+1 and detect a pixel that matches each pixel value of the template 105. Then, the target is plotted for each travel direction at a pixel position matching the template 105 on the lightness image at time t+1 to create a travel-direction-extracted image.

Claims

1. A target travel direction detecting method comprising:

an image acquiring step of acquiring an image including a target picked up at predetermined time intervals;

an extracted image creating step of creating an image including an arbitrary component extracted from the image;

a target position detecting step of causing a matrix template to scan the extracted image at time t to detect the position of the target;

a pixel value storing step of storing each pixel value of the extracted image at time t into the template;

a value-matching pixel detecting step of causing a template storing the pixel value to scan the extracted image at time t+1 to detect the position of a pixel whose value matches a pixel value of the template; and

a travel-direction-extracted image creating step of plotting a pixel value set to accordance with the travel direction of the target at the same coordinate position as the pixel position detected in the value-matching pixel detecting step to create a travel-direction-extracted image.

3. The target travel direction detecting method according to claim 1, wherein

the travel-direction-extracted image creating step includes a speed calculating step of obtaining a speed of the target based on the distance between the position of a first center of gravity as a center of gravity of the target in a first travel-direction-extracted image created based on an image picked up at time t and an image picked up at time t+1, and the position of a second center of gravity as a center of gravity of the target in a second travel-direction-extracted image created based on an image picked up at time t+1 and an image picked up at time t+2.

4. The target travel direction detecting method according to claim 1, wherein

the extracted image creating step selects and extracts a lightness component, a hue component and a chroma component from a color image.

5. The target travel direction detecting method according to claim 1, comprising

a space-time image creating step of creating a space-time image where images in a predetermined area extracted from each of the travel-direction-extracted images created in the travel-direction-extracted image creating step are arranged in chronological order.

8. The target travel direction detecting method according to claim 3, wherein

the extracted image creating step selects and extracts a lightness component, a hue component and a chroma component from a color image.

10. The target travel direction detecting method according to claim 3, comprising

a space-time image creating step of creating a space-time image where images in a predetermined area extracted from each of the travel-direction-extracted images created in the travel-direction-extracted image creating step are arranged in chronological order.

11. The target travel direction detecting method according to any claim 4, comprising

a space-time image creating step of creating a space-time image where images in a predetermined area extracted from each of the travel-direction-extracted images created in the travel-direction-extracted image creating step are arranged in chronological order.

2. A target travel direction detecting method comprising:

an image acquiring step of acquiring an image including a target picked up at predetermined time intervals;

an extracted image creating step of creating respective images including arbitrary components extracted from the image;

a target position detecting step of respectively causing a matrix template to scan each of the extracted images at time t to respectively detect the position of the target;

a pixel value storing step of storing each pixel value of each of the extracted images at time t into each of the templates;

a value-matching pixel detecting step of causing each template storing the pixel value to scan each of the extracted images at time t+1 to respectively detect the position of a pixel whose value matches each pixel value of each of the templates; and

a travel-direction-extracted image creating step of plotting a pixel value set to accordance with the travel direction of the target at the same coordinate position as each of the pixel positions detected in the value-matching pixel detecting step to respectively create a plurality of travel-direction-extracted images and obtain, per pixel, the mean value of the plurality of travel-direction-extracted images in order to create a complex travel-direction-extracted image.

6. The target travel direction detecting method according to claim 2, wherein

the travel-direction-extracted image creating step includes a speed calculating step of obtaining a speed of the target based on the distance between the position of a first center of gravity as a center of gravity of the target in a first travel-direction-extracted image created based on an image picked up at time t and an image picked up at time t+1, and the position of a second center of gravity as a center of gravity of the target in a second travel-direction-extracted image created based on an image picked up at time t+1 and an image picked up at time t+2.

7. The target travel direction detecting method according to claim 2, wherein

the extracted image creating step selects and extracts a lightness component, a hue component and a chroma component from a color image.

9. The target travel direction detecting method according to claim 2, comprising

a space-time image creating step of creating a space-time image where images in a predetermined area extracted from each of the travel-direction-extracted images created in the travel-direction-extracted image creating step are arranged in chronological order.