IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, RECORDING MEDIUM, AND PROGRAM

• US 20120243737A1
• Filed: 01/20/2012
• Published: 09/27/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: OGAWA, Kaname
• Granted Patent: US 8,774,458 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20081 Training; Learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30232 Surveillance
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/194 involving foreground-background segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/248 involving reference images or patches

Abstract

An image processing apparatus includes: a calculating unit that calculates an evaluation value, which is expressed as a sum of confidence degrees obtained by mixing, at a predetermined mixing ratio, a matching degree of a first feature quantity and a matching degree of a second feature quantity between a target image containing an object to be tracked and a comparison image which is an image of a comparison region compared to the target image of a first frame, when the mixing ratio is varied and obtaining the mixing ratio when the evaluation value is maximum; and a detecting unit that detects an image corresponding to the target image of a second frame based on the confidence degrees in which the mixing ratio is set when the evaluation value is the maximum.

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus comprising:

a calculating unit that calculates an evaluation value, which is expressed as a sum of confidence degrees obtained by mixing, at a predetermined mixing ratio, a matching degree of a first feature quantity and a matching degree of a second feature quantity between a target image containing an object to be tracked and a comparison image which is an image of a comparison region compared to the target image of a first frame, when the mixing ratio is varied and obtains the mixing ratio when the evaluation value is maximum; and

a detecting unit that detects an image corresponding to the target image of a second frame based on the confidence degrees in which the mixing ratio is set when the evaluation value is the maximum.

2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first and second frames are one of an odd frame and an even frame and the other thereof.

3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

a computing unit that sets a scan image in a scan region on the second frame as the comparison image and calculates the confidence degree between the target image and the scan image.

4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the detecting unit detects the scan image, in which the confidence degree between the target image and the scan image are the maximum, as an image corresponding to the target image.

5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the calculating unit sets an image in a reference region on the first frame as the target image, sets a plurality of regions containing at least a part of the target image in the reference region as positive regions, sets a plurality of regions containing no target image in the reference region as negative regions, calculates first confidence degrees which are the confidence degrees between the target image in the reference region and the images in the plurality of positive regions, calculates second confidence degrees which are the confidence degrees between the target image in the reference region and the images in the plurality of negative regions, calculates a first sum of products which is a sum of products of the first confidence degrees and a first weight coefficient of the positive regions, calculates a second sum of products which is a sum of products of the second confidence degrees and a second weight coefficient of the negative regions, and calculates a sum of the first sum of products and the second sum of products as the evaluation value.

6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the first weight coefficient is a value obtained by dividing a constant by the number of positive regions and the second weight coefficient is a value obtained by dividing the constant by the number of negative regions.

7. The image processing apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein the calculating unit calculates the evaluation value for a third frame subsequent to the second frame by setting an image in a region, which corresponds to coordinates of an image corresponding to the target image of the second frame, and in a region on the third frame as the new target image and obtains the mixing ratio when the evaluation value is the maximum, and

wherein the detecting unit detects an image corresponding to the new target image of the third frame on a fourth frame subsequent to the third frame based on the confidence degrees in which the mixing ratio is set when the evaluation value is the maximum based on the image on the third frame.

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

a display unit that displays a marker on a region corresponding to coordinates of the image corresponding to the target image.

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

a driving unit that drives a camera so that the image corresponding to the target image is located at a predetermined position on a screen.

10. The image processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the first feature quantity is luminance information and the second feature quantity is color information.

11. An image processing method comprising:

calculating an evaluation value, which is expressed as a sum of confidence degrees obtained by mixing, at a predetermined mixing ratio, a matching degree of a first feature quantity and a matching degree of a second feature quantity between a target image containing an object to be tracked and a comparison image which is an image of a comparison region compared to the target image of a predetermined frame, when the mixing ratio is varied and obtaining the mixing ratio when the evaluation value is maximum; and

detecting an image corresponding to the target image based on the confidence degrees in which the mixing ratio is set when the evaluation value is the maximum.

12. A recording medium recording a program that causes a computer to execute a process comprising:

calculating an evaluation value, which is expressed as a sum of confidence degrees obtained by mixing, at a predetermined mixing ratio, a matching degree of a first feature quantity and a matching degree of a second feature quantity between a target image containing an object to be tracked and a comparison image which is an image of a comparison region compared to the target image of a predetermined frame, when the mixing ratio is varied and obtaining the mixing ratio when the evaluation value is maximum; and

detecting an image corresponding to the target image based on the confidence degrees in which the mixing ratio is set when the evaluation value is the maximum.

13. A program causing a computer to execute a process comprising:

calculating an evaluation value, which is expressed as a sum of confidence degrees obtained by mixing, at a predetermined mixing ratio, a matching degree of a first feature quantity and a matching degree of a second feature quantity between a target image containing an object to be tracked and a comparison image which is an image of a comparison region compared to the target image of a predetermined frame, when the mixing ratio is varied and obtaining the mixing ratio when the evaluation value is maximum; and

detecting an image corresponding to the target image based on the confidence degrees in which the mixing ratio is set when the evaluation value is the maximum.