Interactive wide-angle video server

• US 20070124783A1
• Filed: 11/23/2005
• Published: 05/31/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Grandeye Limited (Oncam Global Group AG)
• Original Assignee: Grandeye Limited (Oncam Global Group AG)
• Inventors: Ahiska, Yavuz, Ahiska, Bartu, Davey, Mark
• Granted Patent: US 8,723,951 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/105
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/21805 enabling multiple viewpoints, e.g. using a plurality of cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/24 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. monitoring of server load, available bandwidth, upstream requests monitoring of server performance or load G06F11/34; arrangements for observation, testing or troubleshooting for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4402 involving reformatting operations of video signals for household redistribution, storage or real-time display details of conversion of video standards at pixel level H04N7/01; video transcoding H04N19/40; adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal G09G5/005; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6377 directed to server one-way streaming services wherein the source is controlled by the destination H04L65/613
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/661 Transmitting camera control signals through networks, e.g. control via the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/2628 Alteration of picture size, shape, position or orientation, e.g. zooming, rotation, rolling, perspective, translation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

An interactive video server which enables multiple clients to independently and interactively extract views from a one or more wide-angle imagery sources is disclosed.

Claims

1. A system for remotely viewing wide-angle video, comprising:

a server at a first location capable of receiving wide-angle video images from a one or more sources;

a client at a remote second location capable of requesting from said server a portion of a video image from a specified source;

wherein said server is capable of outputting said requested portion of a distorted wide-angle image; and

wherein said client is capable of receiving said portion and is capable of generating a virtual camera view with reduced distortion by transforming said portion.

2. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said client is capable of generating multiple virtual camera views by requesting multiple portions of one or more wide-angle images.

4. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said server is capable of serving multiple clients each requesting separate portions.

5. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said transformation is based on 3D graphics techniques, using texture-mapping for stereographic projection or linear perspective projection or cylindrical projection.

6. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said transformation is based on tabular distortion-correction.

7. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said transformation is based on 2D transform mapping using orthogonal transform algorithms.

8. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said client generates said virtual camera view with view coordinates based on a pan and/or tilt and/or zoom value derived from local device input such as a mouse or a joy stick.

9. A system as recited in claim 8 wherein said virtual camera view coordinates are sent from said server together with portion of a wide-angle video image and said client generates virtual camera view based on received information.

12. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said request is based on a pan and/or tilt and/or zoom and/or field-of-view value corresponding to virtual camera view coordinates, and said server computes corresponding portion.

13. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said server output response to said requests and corresponding virtual camera view generation at the client occurs in approximately real-time.

14. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said server continues sending portion(s) to a client corresponding to last request to provide approximate real-time video viewing at said client.

16. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein said portion comprises of a plurality of segments.

17. A system as recited in claim 16 wherein said segment generation is based on segmenting said wide-angle image by a regular grid.

18. A system as recited in claim 17 wherein said request is based on a binary image representing said grid.

3. (canceled)

10. (canceled)

11. (canceled)

15. (canceled)

19-23. -23. (canceled)

24. A method for remotely viewing wide-angle video comprising the steps of:

outputting from a first location one or more portions of a distorted wide-angle video image with information of said distortion; and

receiving at a second location said one or more portions and said information, and generating one or more corresponding distortion-alleviated views from the one or more portions using said information.

25. A method as recited in claim 24 wherein said information includes a table describing the properties of the device used to capture said wide-angle video.

26. A method for remotely viewing wide-angle video comprising the steps of:

outputting from a first location positional information for a portion of a wide-angle video image; and

transmitting from a second location one or more portions corresponding to said positional information.

27. A method as recited in claim 26 wherein said second location services multiple remote locations.

28. A method as recited in claim 26 wherein said first location outputs positional information for multiple portions from one ore more wide-angle-video images.

29. A method as recited in claim 26 wherein said output from first location is based on a pan and/or tilt and/or zoom and/or field-of-view value(s) derived from local device input.