ENHANCED TOP-DOWN VIEW GENERATION IN A FRONT CURB VIEWING SYSTEM
First Claim
1. A system for providing enhanced top-down viewing of an area in front of a vehicle, said system comprising:
- a first camera mounted at the left front of the vehicle;
a second camera mounted at the right front of the vehicle;
an image acquisition module in communication with the first and second camera, said image acquisition module receiving raw images from the cameras, and the raw images from the cameras have a generally forward view perspective;
a processor including a memory module, said processor being configured to provide a virtual top-down view of the area in front of the vehicle, where the virtual top-down view is synthesized from the raw images from the cameras, and the virtual top-down view includes corrections for artificial protrusion of vehicle body parts into the view, low resolution and noise around edges of the view, and a double vision effect for objects above ground level; and
a display unit in a cockpit area of the vehicle for displaying the virtual top-down view from the processor for viewing by a driver of the vehicle.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for creating an enhanced virtual top-down view of an area in front of a vehicle, using images from left-front and right-front cameras. The enhanced virtual top-down view not only provides the driver with a top-down view perspective which is not directly available from raw camera images, but also removes the distortion and exaggerated perspective effects which are inherent in wide-angle lens images. The enhanced virtual top-down view also includes corrections for three types of problems which are typically present in de-warped images—including artificial protrusion of vehicle body parts into the image, low resolution and noise around the edges of the image, and a “double vision” effect for objects above ground level.
52 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A system for providing enhanced top-down viewing of an area in front of a vehicle, said system comprising:
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a first camera mounted at the left front of the vehicle; a second camera mounted at the right front of the vehicle; an image acquisition module in communication with the first and second camera, said image acquisition module receiving raw images from the cameras, and the raw images from the cameras have a generally forward view perspective; a processor including a memory module, said processor being configured to provide a virtual top-down view of the area in front of the vehicle, where the virtual top-down view is synthesized from the raw images from the cameras, and the virtual top-down view includes corrections for artificial protrusion of vehicle body parts into the view, low resolution and noise around edges of the view, and a double vision effect for objects above ground level; and a display unit in a cockpit area of the vehicle for displaying the virtual top-down view from the processor for viewing by a driver of the vehicle. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for providing enhanced top-down viewing of an area in front of a vehicle, said method comprising:
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providing images from front-mounted cameras on the vehicle, where the images have a generally forward view perspective; synthesizing a virtual top-down view from the images from the cameras; performing, using a microprocessor, a de-warping calculation on the virtual top-down view to produce a de-warped virtual top-down view; enhancing the de-warped virtual top-down view to produce an enhanced virtual top-down view, including correcting for artificial protrusion of vehicle body parts into the view, correcting low resolution and noise around edges of the view, and correcting a double vision effect for objects above ground level; and displaying the enhanced virtual top-down view on a display device for viewing by a driver. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method for providing enhanced top-down viewing of an area in front of a vehicle, said method comprising:
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providing images from front-mounted cameras on the vehicle, where the images have a generally forward view perspective; synthesizing a virtual top-down view from the images from the cameras; performing, using a microprocessor, a de-warping calculation on the virtual top-down view to produce a de-warped virtual top-down view; enhancing the de-warped virtual top-down view to produce an enhanced virtual top-down view by correcting for artificial protrusion of vehicle body parts into the view, including defining an occlusion region by calculating which pixels of the enhanced virtual top-down view are blocked by vehicle body parts, performing a spatial filling of the occlusion region based on image texture and structure for areas surrounding the occlusion region, performing a temporal filling of the occlusion region based on inter-frame motion to fill pixels into the occlusion region, and combining the spatial filling and the temporal filling of the occlusion region; correcting low resolution and noise around edges of the enhanced virtual top-down view, including identifying low resolution regions around edges of the enhanced virtual top-down view, performing a spatial resolution enhancement of the low resolution regions based on image texture for higher resolution regions surrounding the low resolution regions, performing a temporal resolution enhancement of the low resolution regions based on inter-frame motion to fill pixels into the low resolution regions, and combining the spatial resolution enhancement and the temporal resolution enhancement of the low resolution regions; correcting a double vision effect for objects above ground level in the enhanced virtual top-down view, including creating a three-dimensional model of the above-ground objects including curbs detected in the images from the cameras, above-ground objects detected using stereo vision and structure from motion techniques applied to the images from the cameras, and above-ground objects detected using other sensors onboard the vehicle, and rendering images of the above-ground objects based on the three-dimensional model; and displaying the enhanced virtual top-down view on a display device for viewing by a driver. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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Specification