IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND PROGRAM

• US 20100104217A1
• Filed: 09/23/2009
• Published: 04/29/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: TSURUMI, Shingo
• Granted Patent: US 9,106,872 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/284
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/175 Static expression
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/20 Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition recognition of facial expressions G06V40/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• 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 21/4415 using biometric characteristics of the user, e.g. by voice recognition or fingerprint scanning cryptography using biological data H04L9/3231; authentication in networks using biometric H04L63/0861
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/485 End-user interface for client configuration

Abstract

An image processing apparatus includes: a front-most image information storage unit configured to store information relating to a front-most image that is one image of a plurality of compositing target images serving as compositing targets of an imaged image making up an imaged moving picture; a transformation information storage unit configured to store transformation information used for transforming another compositing target image of the plurality of compositing target images with the front-most image as a reference; an image transforming unit configured to transform the plurality of compositing target images sequentially toward the front-most image from the compositing target image positioned at the forefront or last of the temporal axis based on the transformation information; an image compositing unit configured to overwrite-composite the transformed compositing target images sequentially to generate a composited image; and a display control unit configured to display the composited image sequentially.

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus comprising:

a front-most image information storage unit configured to store information relating to a front-most image that is one image of a plurality of compositing target images serving as compositing targets of an imaged image making up an imaged moving picture;

a transformation information storage unit configured to store transformation information used for transforming another compositing target image of said plurality of compositing target images with said front-most image as a reference;

an image transforming unit configured to transform said plurality of compositing target images sequentially toward said front-most image from said compositing target image positioned at the forefront or last of the temporal axis based on said transformation information;

an image compositing unit configured to overwrite-composite said transformed compositing target images sequentially to generate a composited image; and

a display control unit configured to display said composited image sequentially.

2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said front-most image is said compositing target image other than said compositing target image positioned at the forefront or last on the temporal axis;

and wherein said image transforming unit transforms said compositing target images adjacent to said front-most image, following which sequentially transforms said plurality of compositing target images toward said front-most image from said compositing target image positioned at the edge portion of the opposite side of said transformed compositing target images on the temporal axis based on said transformation information.

3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said image compositing unit adds a decoration image to the peripheries of said transformed compositing target images, and sequentially overwrite-composites the compositing target images to which the decoration image thereof has been added to generate a composited image.

4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an operation accepting unit configured to accept a specification operation used to specifying whether to execute said transformation from which edge portion on the temporal axis;

wherein said image transforming unit executes said transformation toward said front-most image from said compositing target image positioned at said specified edge portion.

5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an object detecting unit configured to detect an object included in said compositing target images;

wherein in the case that said object is included in said transformed compositing target image, in order to prevent the next compositing target image from being overwritten on an object region including the object thereof, said image compositing unit moves and overwrite-composites the next compositing target image thereof.

6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said plurality of compositing target images are images that are transformed and composited based on said transformation information, thereby creating a panorama image corresponding to a portion of imaging space included in said imaged moving picture.

7. An image processing method comprising the steps of:

transforming, with one image of a plurality of

compositing target images serving as compositing targets of an imaged image making up an imaged moving picture as a front-most image, and with said front-most image as a reference, said plurality of compositing target images sequentially toward said front-most image from said compositing target image positioned at the forefront or last on the temporal axis based on transformation information used for transforming another compositing target image of said plurality of compositing target images;

overwrite-compositing of said transformed compositing target images sequentially to generate a composited image; and

displaying of said composited image sequentially.

8. A program causing a computer to execute:

transforming, with one image of a plurality of compositing target images serving as compositing targets of an imaged image making up an imaged moving picture as a front-most image, and with said front-most image as a reference, said plurality of compositing target images sequentially toward said front-most image from said compositing target image positioned at the forefront or last on the temporal axis based on transformation information used for transforming another compositing target image of said plurality of compositing target images;

overwrite-compositing of said transformed compositing target images sequentially to generate a composited image; and

displaying of said composited image sequentially.