Multiple View and Multiple Object Processing in Wide-Angle Video Camera

• US 20100002071A1
• Filed: 05/04/2009
• Published: 01/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Grandeye Limited (Oncam Global Group AG)
• Original Assignee: Grandeye Limited (Oncam Global Group AG)
• Inventors: Ahiska, Yavuz
• Granted Patent: US 8,427,538 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/36
• CPC Class Codes: G03B 15/16 for photographing the track of moving objects high-speed photography G03B39/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30232 Surveillance
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30241 Trajectory
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/80 Geometric correction
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19641 Multiple cameras having overlapping views on a single scene
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/62 Control of parameters via user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/635 Region indicators; Field of view indicators
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/661 Transmitting camera control signals through networks, e.g. control via the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/69 Control of means for changing angle of the field of view, e.g. optical zoom objectives or electronic zooming
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/695 Control of camera direction for changing a field of view, e.g. pan, tilt or based on tracking of objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/81 for suppressing or minimising disturbance in the image signal generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/61 the noise originating only from the lens unit, e.g. flare, shading, vignetting or "cos4"
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/188 Capturing isolated or intermittent images triggered by the occurrence of a predetermined event, e.g. an object reaching a predetermined position signal generation from motion picture films H04N5/253

Abstract

Methods and systems of transmitting a plurality of views from a video camera are disclosed. A multi object processing camera captures a wide-angle field of view in high resolution and a processing circuit executes a plurality of software tasks on a plurality of regions extracted from the wide-angle view. Multiple objects can be processed by the camera to detect various events, and the results of the processing transmitted to a base station. The camera removes the need for mechanical pan, tilt, and zoom apparatus by correcting distortions in the electronic image introduced by the wide-angle optical system and image sensor to electronically emulate the pan, tilt, and zoom movement.

Claims

1. A video camera, comprising:

a wide-angle camera system configured to generate a digital video image using a lens providing an approximate hemispherical field of view and an image sensor, the digital video image distorted by the lens;

an image processing circuit that receives and processes the distorted electronic image data to mathematically correct the distortion and can process image data correlating to a plurality of generated virtual cameras monitoring individual regions of interest within the digital video image, that also includes simultaneously monitoring multiple specific objects without losing surveillance of other objects, the processing of the digital image covering either a wide-angle frame or regions of interest within the frame, where the camera system simultaneously maintains a view covering the entire approximate visual hemisphere; and

a control circuit that transmits commands to the image processing circuit relating to one or more selected virtual cameras monitoring a region of interest, the image processing circuit responding to the commands with executed commanded movement by correcting optical distortion to emulate a pan, tilt, or zoom command in a specified virtual camera.

2. The video camera of claim 1, further comprising:

a command received at the camera in an data packet used on a network;

a digital image transmitted from the camera in a data packet used on the network; and

the data packets are addressed using a network address.

3. The video camera of claim 2, wherein the network address comprises an Internet Protocol address.

4. The video camera of claim 1, further comprising:

a network connection used to upload software for use by the processing circuit.

5. The video camera of claim 1, further comprising:

image data monitoring to autonomously designate at least one region of interest based on the result of algorithms, wherein said monitoring includes results of an algorithm performing at least one of;

behavior detection;

movement detection;

smoke detection;

left package detection;

face recognition;

object detection; and

event detection.

6. The video camera of claim 1, wherein monitoring includes tracking object movement, wherein the object'"'"'s spatial coordinates and/or trajectory can be transmitted to one or more base stations or other cameras.

7. The video camera of claim 1, wherein the image processing circuit can perform image analysis on distorted electronic image data or the corrected electronic image data.

8. The video camera of claim 1, wherein the image processing circuit can execute movement commands while performing image analysis on the portions of the uncorrected digital electronic image data or on corrected portions of the electronic image data to detect an event and react to said detection.

9. The video camera of claim 1, wherein the image processing circuit is programmable and image processing software use to process the distorted electronic image data modified or uploaded.

10. (canceled)

11. A method of operating a video camera, comprising the steps of:

converting a distorted optical electronic video image into a digital video image; and

executing a plurality of software tasks on at least a portion of the digital video image or stored digital video image, wherein the software tasks include at least one of the following;

correcting optical geometric distortions introduced by a lens sensor combination;

executing movement and zoom operations on the digital video image by electronically correcting the distorted optical image to emulate the movement and zoom operations;

conditioning transmission of a partial set of images from the digital video image based on the results of event detection;

validating results of a detection algorithm by another video camera coupled to the digital video camera;

autonomously identifying a specific object, while monitoring other objects;

tracking and communicating position and trajectory data of an identified object to at least one other video camera;

receiving position and trajectory data from another video camera for an object; and

automatically tracking and monitoring a specific object as it moves across the field of view of multiple the video camera.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of:

associating movement and zoom commands to a plurality of selected regions of interest selected within the digital video image, wherein each region of interest occupies any portion of the captured distorted optical image.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of:

transmitting desired region of interest images and the complete digital video image for simultaneous viewing, with each region of interest image and the complete digital video image scalable to different resolutions and controlled to emulate movement and zoom.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of:

monitoring of the entire digital video image while performing a software task on a portion of the digital video image.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein each region of interest corresponds to an individual virtual camera.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein each region of interest bears a unique network address.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of:

modifying software used by the processing circuit by uploading software for use by the processing circuit using a network connection.

12. (canceled)

18. (canceled)

21. A surveillance camera, comprising:

a wide-angle lens and image sensor system configured to generate a digital video image using a lens capturing an approximate hemispherical image data set, the digital video image optically distorted by the lens and sensor;

an image processing circuit that receives and processes the distorted digital video image data to perform at least one of the following tasks;

correct optical distortions introduced by the lens and sensor;

execute movement and zoom operations on the digital video image by electronically manipulating the digital image data;

condition transmission of a partial set of images from the digital video image data based on the results of event detection;

validate results of a detection algorithm by another surveillance camera coupled to the surveillance camera;

autonomously identify a specific object from multiple monitored objects;

track an identified object;

communicate position and trajectory data of an identified object to at least one other surveillance camera;

receive position and trajectory data from another surveillance camera for an object; and

automatically track and monitor a specific object as it moves across the field of view of multiple the surveillance camera;

designate at least one region of interest based on a software algorithm result; and

a control circuit that transmits commands to the image processing circuit relating to the at least one region of interest, the image processing circuit responding to the commands with executed commanded movement to emulate a pan, tilt, or zoom movement to at least one specified region of interest; and

a transmitting circuit transmitting desired region of interest images and the complete digital video image for simultaneous viewing, with each region of interest image and the complete digital video image scalable to different resolutions and controlled to emulate movement and zoom.

22. The surveillance camera of claim 21, wherein a region of interest corresponds to a virtual camera addressed by a network address and controllable autonomously by the software in the surveillance camera and also from a base station using the network address.

24. The surveillance camera of claim 21, wherein the image processing includes at least one of:

sharpening;

contrast adjustment;

color adjustment;

scaling;

image analysis algorithm execution;

filtering;

white balance adjustment;

event detection; and

object detection and identification.

23. (canceled)

25-36. -36. (canceled)