SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR A SOFTWARE STEERABLE WEB CAMERA WITH MULTIPLE IMAGE SUBSET CAPTURE

• US 20070030353A1
• Filed: 07/03/2006
• Published: 02/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ARRIS Enterprises LLC (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Digeo Incorporated (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Novak, Robert
• Granted Patent: US 7,593,041 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/207.100
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0007 Image acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/58 Means for changing the camera field of view without moving the camera body, e.g. nutating or panning of optics or image sensors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture

Abstract

A method of capturing a scene within a field of view of a wide-angle lens coupled to a camera comprising storing image data of the scene in an image collection array, digitizing the scene image data into digitized scene image data for storage in a memory, receiving selections of a plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data, and performing distortion compensation on the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data.

Claims

1. A method of capturing a scene within a field of view of a wide-angle lens coupled to a camera, the method comprising:

storing image data of the scene in an image collection array;

digitizing the scene image data into digitized scene image data for storage in a memory;

receiving selections of a plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data; and

performing distortion compensation on the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data are selected serially.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

reconstructing the selected plurality of subsets into an integrated output image.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein a subset corresponds to a focus area in the scene.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the camera is used to transmit images over a network.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the camera is communicatively coupled to a set top box that is capable of transmitting images over a network.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing compression on the distortion-compensated subsets of the digitized scene image data.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting respective ones of the distortion-compensated subsets of the digitized scene image data to one or more destination devices.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data is automatically selected based on detected activity in the scene.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data is selected based on a user command.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein at least two of the selected subsets are overlapping.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein at least two of the selected subsets are non-overlapping.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein at least two of the selected subsets are serially selected by one or more users.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the wide-angle lens comprises a fish-eye lens.

15. An article of manufacture, comprising:

a machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions to;

store image data of a scene in an image collection array captured by a wide-angle lens;

digitize the scene image data into digitized scene image data and store the digitized scene image data in a memory;

receive selections of a plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data; and

perform distortion compensation on the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data.

16. An apparatus for capturing a scene within a field of view of a wide-angle lens of a camera, comprising:

means for storing image data of the scene;

means for digitizing the scene image data into digitized scene image data;

means for receiving selections of a plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data; and

means for performing distortion compensation on the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising:

means for reconstructing the selected plurality of subsets into an integrated output image.

18. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising:

means for transmitting the distortion-compensated subsets of the digitized scene image data through a network.

19. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising:

means for transmitting respective ones of the distortion-compensated subsets of the digitized scene image data to one or more destination devices.

20. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein at least two of the selected subsets are serially selected by one or more users.