NETWORK CAMERA SYSTEM

• US 20080088699A1
• Filed: 10/16/2007
• Published: 04/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Fujita, Shunji
• Granted Patent: US 8,274,548 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/36
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source

Abstract

A network camera system which is capable of generating a panoramic image by smooth or seamless connection of images, even when a network camera having a wide-angle lens is used. A network camera system includes a network camera that has a wide-angle lens which can be controlled for zooming, and a PC that is connected to the image pickup device via a network, for controlling the network camera. The PC comprises a panoramic image generation unit for generating a panoramic image by connecting a plurality of images picked up by the network camera and a remote zoom unit for causing the wide-angle lens of the image pickup device to move to a predetermined position when the network camera system is in a panoramic shooting mode.

Claims

1. A network camera system comprising:

an image pickup device that has a wide-angle lens which can be controlled for zooming; and

a control unit that is connected to said image pickup device via a network, for controlling said image pickup device,

wherein said control unit comprises;

a panoramic image generation unit configured to generate a panoramic image by connecting a plurality of images picked up by said image pickup device; and

a remote zoom unit configured to cause said wide-angle lens of said image pickup device to move to a predetermined position when the network camera system is in a panoramic shooting mode.

2. A network camera system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the predetermined position to which said wide-angle lens of said image pickup device is caused to move by said remote zoom unit is a position wherein distortion of said wide-angle lens is reduced.

3. A network camera system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said remote zoom unit changes a distance over which said wide-angle lens is moved, depending on a position of an image to be picked up, within the panoramic image.

4. A network camera system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said remote zoom unit performs zooming such that distortion of central ones of the images from which the panoramic image is formed is most reduced, and images closer to a periphery of the panoramic image are picked up by zooming with a lower zoom magnification.

5. A network camera system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said remote zoom unit performs zooming such that distortion of peripheral ones of the images from which the panoramic image is formed is most reduced, and images closer to the center of the panoramic image are picked up by zooming with a lower zoom magnification.

6. A network camera system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said panoramic image generation unit generates the panoramic image by connecting the images picked up by said image pickup device, and connecting predetermined images to the connected images, for regions from which images cannot be picked up due to zooming.

7. A network camera system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the predetermined images are either copies of images at ends of the panoramic image which are picked up by said image pickup device or colored images.

8. A network camera system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said remote zoom unit is configured to be operable when a user designates a panoramic image generation range, to determine a zoom magnification such that the panoramic image can be generated from only the images picked up by said image pickup device, and perform zoom control with the zoom magnification.