MOVING BODY IMAGE EXTRACTION APPARATUS AND COMPUTER READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM STORING PROGRAM

• US 20090060275A1
• Filed: 08/21/2008
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Casio Computer Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Casio Computer Company Limited
• Inventors: HAMADA, Akira
• Granted Patent: US 8,116,521 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30196 Human being; Person
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30221 Sports video; Sports image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/16 Spatio-temporal transformations, e.g. video cubism
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/11 Region-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/174 involving the use of two or more images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/194 involving foreground-background segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/254 involving subtraction of images

Abstract

A moving body image extraction apparatus calculates difference intensity relating to a background portion with respect to a plurality of frame of continuous shoot, calculates a value by dividing difference intensity of an arbitrary frame of the plurality of frames by summed difference intensity for the plurality of frames, outputs an extracted image of a moving body in the arbitrary frame based on the calculated value.

Claims

1. A moving body image extraction apparatus comprising:

a first calculation section for calculating difference intensity relating to a background portion or other frame with respect to a plurality of frames;

a summing section for summing the difference intensities of the plurality of frames calculated by said first calculation section;

a second calculation section for calculating a value by dividing the difference intensity of an arbitrary frame of the plurality of frames by the difference intensity for the plurality of frames summed by said summing section; and

a first output section for outputting an extracted image of a moving body in the arbitrary frame based on the value calculated by said second calculation section.

2. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

said first calculation section calculates, for each pixel, the difference intensity relating to the background portion or other frame, and

said second calculation section calculates, for each pixel, the value by dividing the difference intensity of the arbitrary frame by the difference intensity for the plurality of frames summed by said summing section;

3. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said first calculation section calculates a sum of squares with weight of a color component difference of each image in a frame.

4. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said first calculation section calculates an absolute value sum with weight of a color component difference of each image in a frame.

5. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a third calculation section for calculating a representative value of the background portion from the difference intensity; and

a normalization section for normalizing the difference intensity by calculating a maximum value by subtracting the representative value calculated by said third calculation section from the difference intensity.

6. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a frame generation section for generating a frame to be combined by multiplying each pixel value of the arbitrary frame of the plurality of frames by the value calculated by said second calculation section;

a combining section for combining a plurality of the frames to be combined generated by said frame generation section;

7. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising:

a first judgment section for separating the frame to the background portion and the moving body portion according to the difference intensity calculated by said first calculation section with respect to the plurality of frames, and judging whether the frame is a frame to be combined by said combining section based on the separated result,

wherein said combining section combines the frame that said first judgment section judges the frame to be combined.

8. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said combining section selectively combines the frame to be combined based on a representative value of the moving body portion relating to a frame adjacent in the plurality of frames.

9. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising:

a second judgment section for judging a relationship of the difference intensities between the frames adjacent in the plurality of frames,

said combining section selectively combines the frame to be combined generated by said frame generation section corresponding to any one of the adjacent frames when said second judgment section judges that the relationship of the difference intensities is strong.

10. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising:

a first estimation section for estimating a noise level of the background portion from the difference intensity calculated by said first calculation section;

a second estimation section for estimating a composite noise level generated by combining by said combining section from the noise level of the background portion estimated by said first estimation section;

a fourth calculation section for calculating a minimum value by subtracting a sum of the difference intensities of the moving body portion from among the difference intensities calculated by said first calculation section from a divisor minimum value being a value that increases or decreases according to the composite noise level estimated by said second estimation section; and

a second output section for outputting a value obtained by adding the minimum value to the difference intensity of the background portion calculated by said first calculation section when the minimum value calculated by said fourth calculation section is positive.

11. A moving body image extraction apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an image pickup section,

wherein the plurality of frames is obtained by sequentially driving said image pickup section.

12. A computer readable storage medium storing a program that causes a computer to realize:

a first calculation function of calculating difference intensity relating to a background portion or other frame with respect to a plurality of frames;

a summing function of summing the difference intensities of the plurality of frames calculated by said first calculation function;

a second calculation function for calculating a value by dividing the difference intensity of an arbitrary frame of the plurality of frames by the difference intensity for the plurality of frames summed by said summing function; and

a first output function for outputting an extracted image of a moving body in the arbitrary frame based on the value calculated by said second calculation function.