IMAGE PICKUP APPARATUS

• US 20070058046A1
• Filed: 09/12/2006
• Published: 03/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Kagei, Kenji
• Granted Patent: US 7,916,172 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/208.140
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/7865 using correlation of the live video image with a stored image

Abstract

The present invention provides an image pickup apparatus for automatically tracking an object to pick up an image of the object, and the image apparatus comprises; a lens apparatus including a zoom lens and a focus lens, the lens apparatus picking up an image of the object; a camera device for picking up an image of the object acquired by the lens apparatus; a universal head for driving pan and tilt of the camera device; a memory for recording trace data of the universal head and image information picked up in synchronization with the trace data; an object recognizing circuit for recognizing the object; a shift amount detection unit for detecting a shift amount between the object and the trace data; and a control device for controlling the driving operation of the universal head based on the trace data and the shift amount.

Claims

1. An image pickup apparatus for automatically tracking an object to pick up an image of the object, comprising:

a lens apparatus including a zoom lens and a focus lens, the lens apparatus picking up an image of the object;

a camera device provided with said lens apparatus for picking up an image of the object acquired by the lens apparatus;

a universal head for supporting said camera device and driving pan and tilt of the camera device;

a memory for recording trace data of said universal head derived from tracking said object and image information picked up in synchronization with the trace data;

an object recognizing circuit for recognizing said object;

a shift amount detection unit for detecting a shift amount between said object and said trace data; and

a control device for controlling the driving operation of said universal head based on said trace data and said shift amount.

2. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

said shift amount detection unit detects a shift in a position of the median point of said object and a shift in a size of said object;

and

said control device controls the pan and tilt driving operation of said universal head in response to said shift in the position of the median point and controls the zoom and focus driving operation of said lens apparatus in response to said shift in the size.

3. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

said object recognizing circuit recognizes said object based on at least one of color of said object and shape of the object.

4. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an editing unit for editing at least one of time data of said trace data and position data of said object.