Automatic tracking lighting equipment, lighting controller and tracking apparatus

• US 6,079,862 A
• Filed: 06/18/1997
• Issued: 06/27/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Asahi Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Asahi Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Yoshida, Minoru, Hagio, Kenichi, Kawashima, Toshikazu, Furukawa, Satoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Gordon, Paul P.
• Application Number:
  US08/878,071
• Time in Patent Office: 1,105 Days
• Field of Search: 700/56, 700/57, 700/58, 700/59, 700/60, 700/83, 382/103, 382/181, 382/190, 348/125, 348/143, 348/155, 348/169, 348/170
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/7864 T.V. type tracking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/16 using electromagnetic waves other than radio waves
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/115 by determining the presence or movement of objects or living beings
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/125 by using cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/155 Coordinated control of two or more light sources
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 20/40 Control techniques providing energy savings, e.g. smart controller or presence detection

Abstract

Automatic tracking lighting equipment for automatically tracking a target to be illuminated. A spotlight is supported for pivoting in horizontal and vertical directions on a ceiling surface. A horizontal drive mechanism changes the horizontal angle of the spotlight and a vertical drive mechanism changes the vertical angle of the spotlight. A CCD camera picks up the image of a target area to be illuminated. An image recognition unit processes the image from the CCD camera to recognize the target to be illuminated and to specify its coordinates. A coordinate calculation unit calculates how far to move the spotlight based on a distance of the target to be illuminated. A movable control unit converts the output of the coordinate calculation unit into drive signals for the horizontal drive mechanism and for the vertical drive mechanism and outputs drive signals to pivot the spotlight in a desired direction.

Claims

1. A lighting controller for a system including a lighting fixture for radiating light from a light source, a drive section for pivoting the lighting fixture around a pan axis and about a tilt axis, an image pickup means, pivotable around an axis, for picking up an image in an image pickup region and outputting an image, a display device which displays the image, and an input device for designating a point on the display image displayed on the display device, the lighting controller comprising:

a pivoting quantity calculating section which calculates a first pivoting quantity about the pan axis of the lighting fixture for illuminating the designated point based upon a relative distance in a horizontal direction between the position on the display image designated by the input device and the position of origin of the display image, and which calculates a second pivoting quantity about the tilt axis of the lighting fixture for illuminating the designated point based upon a relative distance in a vertical direction between the position on the display image designated by the input device and the position of origin of the display image, whereby the drive section pivots the lighting fixture based on the first and second pivoting quantities.

2. Automatic tracking lighting equipment comprising:

lighting means for projecting light in a lighting direction;

drive means for changing said lighting direction of said lighting means;

image pickup means provided in a lighting space to pick up an image of a pattern in a lighting space;

image recognizing means for recognizing a target based upon a presence of said pattern in said image of said image pickup means and for specifying coordinates of said target;

calculating means for calculating an amount of movement of said lighting direction based upon coordinates of said target specified by said image recognizing means, and a distance between said lighting means and said image pickup means in said lighting space; and

control means for driving said drive means based on a result of said calculating means.

3. Automatic tracking lighting equipment comprising:

lighting means for projecting light in a lighting direction;

first drive means for changing said lighting direction of said lighting means;

image pickup means provided in a lighting space for picking up an image in said lighting space;

second drive means for changing an image pickup direction of said image pickup means;

storage means for storing the image pickup direction of said image pickup means;

image recognizing means for recognizing a target based upon an image picked up by said image pickup means and for specifying coordinates of said target;

second calculating means for calculating an amount of movement of said second drive means based on a distance of said target recognized by said image recognizing means;

first calculating means for calculating an amount of movement of the lighting direction of said lighting means based upon an output of said second calculating means, a positional relation between said image pickup means and said lighting means, and an image pickup direction of said image pickup means stored in said storage means;

first control means for controlling said first drive means based on an output of said first calculating means; and

second control means for controlling said second drive means based on an output of said second calculating means.

4. Automatic tracking lighting equipment as claimed in claim 3, further comprising a plurality of image pickup means, whereby said second calculating means calculates three-dimensional coordinates of said target in said lighting space from image pickup directions of each of the plurality of said image pickup means.

5. A lighting controller for a system including a lighting fixture for radiating light from a light source;

a drive section for pivoting the lighting fixture about an axis;

image pickup means pivotable about an axis, for picking up an image in an image pickup region and outputting an image;

a display device which displays the image;

an input device for designating a point on the image as displayed on the display device, the lighting controller comprising a pivoting quantity calculating section which calculates a quantity of pivoting of the lighting fixture for illuminating the designated point based upon a relative distance between the point on the display image designated by the input device and the position of origin of the display image, whereby the drive section pivots the lighting fixture based on the quantity of pivoting.

6. A lighting controller as claimed in claim 5, wherein said image pickup means is mounted to the lighting fixture parallel to an optical axis of light radiated from the lighting fixture, and pivots together with the lighting fixture.

7. A lighting controller according to claim 5, wherein said pivoting quantity calculating section multiplies the relative distance between the point of the display image designated by the input device and the position of origin of the display image by a specified constant of proportionality to calculate a relative distance between both points in a projection plane formed in the image pickup means, thereby calculating a quantity of pivoting of the image pickup means from the relative distance in the projection plane and a focal distance of the image pickup means, and calculating a quantity of pivoting of the lighting fixture.

8. A lighting controller as claimed in claim 7, further comprising a focal distance changing means for changing the focal distance of said image pickup means, and a plurality of constants of proportionality correspond with the focal distance to be changed.

9. A lighting controller as claimed in claim 7, further comprising a constant calculating section for calculating said constant of proportionality by pivoting the image pickup means by a specified quantity based on a relative distance between the position of a specified point of the lighting space before pivoting on the display image and the position of the specified point after pivoting on the display image and said specified pivoting quantity.

10. A lighting controller as claimed in claim 9, further comprising image extracting means for extracting an image in a specified area, including the position of the specified point before the pivoting of the lighting space on the display image, from the display image;

a searching means for searching an area approximate to the image in said specified area extracted from the display image after pivoting; and

a post-pivoting position calculating means for calculating the position of the specified point after the pivoting of the lighting space on the display image based upon the position of the searched area on the display image.

11. A lighting controller as claimed in claim 9, wherein the position of the specified point after the pivoting of said lighting space on the display image is input by an operator using the input device.

12. A tracking apparatus comprising:

image pickup means for picking up an image in a specified area;

marker detecting means for detecting a marker attached to an object to be tracked based on a first video signal from said image pickup means;

tracking object setting means for setting a tracking object region including the object to be tracked in a second video signal from said image pickup means;

characteristic value storage means for storing a characteristic value of the tracking object region set by said tracking object setting means;

object extracting means for calculating a degree of respect to the characteristic value of the object to be tracked stored in said characteristic value storage means from the second video signal from said image pickup means and obtaining a position of the object to be tracked based on a result of calculation; and

position detecting means for detecting the position of the object to be tracked in the video signal input successively by using at least one of said market detecting means and said object extracting means.

13. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 12, wherein the position detecting means uses the object extracting means when the marker detecting means cannot detect the marker.

14. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 13, further comprising image pickup direction adjusting means for adjusting an image pickup direction of the image pickup means based on an output of the position detecting means.

15. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 13, further comprising lighting equipment spaced from the image pickup means, and is capable of changing its lighting direction;

and lighting control means for controlling the lighting direction of the lighting equipment based on the position of the object to be tracked detected by the position detecting means so that the lighting equipment illuminates the object to be tracked.

16. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 12, wherein the marker comprises an infrared light transmitter, which transmits in synchronization with the video signal.

17. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 16, further comprising image pickup direction adjusting means for adjusting an image pickup direction of the image pickup means based on an output of the position detecting means.

18. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 16, further comprising lighting equipment spaced from the image pickup means, direction;

and lighting control means for controlling the lighting direction of the lighting equipment based on the position of the object to be tracked detected by the position detecting means so that the lighting equipment illuminates the object to be tracked.

19. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 12, further comprising image pickup direction adjusting means for adjusting an image pickup direction of the image pickup means based on an output of the position detecting means.

20. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 12, further comprising:

lighting equipment spaced from the image pickup means, and capable of changing its lighting direction; and

lighting control means for controlling the lighting direction of the lighting equipment based on the position of the object to be tracked detected by the position detecting means so that the lighting equipment illuminates the object to be tracked.

21. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 12, wherein the position detecting means uses the object extracting means when the marker detecting means detects a plurality of proposed markers.

22. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 21, further comprising lighting equipment spaced from the image pickup means, and is capable of changing its lighting direction;

and lighting control means for controlling the lighting direction of the lighting equipment based on the position of the object to be tracked detected by the position detecting means so that the lighting equipment illuminates the object to be tracked.

23. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 21, further comprising image pickup direction adjusting means for adjusting an image pickup direction of the image pickup means based on an output of the position detecting means.

24. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 12, wherein the position detecting means obtains the position of the object to be tracked by using the position of a proposed marker detected by the marker detecting means and an output of the object extracting means.

25. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 24, further comprising lighting equipment spaced from the image pickup means, and is capable of changing its lighting direction;

and lighting control means for controlling the lighting direction of the lighting equipment based on the position of the object to be tracked detected by the position detecting means so that the lighting equipment illuminates the object to be tracked.

26. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 24, further comprising image pickup direction adjusting means for adjusting an image pickup direction of the image pickup means based on an output of the position detecting means.

27. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 12, further comprising a characteristic value updating means for updating the characteristic value stored in the characteristic value storage means based on the position of the object to be tracked detected by the position detecting means.

28. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 27, further comprising lighting equipment spaced from the image pickup means, and is capable of changing its lighting direction;

and lighting control means for controlling the lighting direction of the lighting equipment based on the position of the object to be tracked detected by the position detecting means so that the lighting equipment illuminates the object to be tracked.

29. A tracking apparatus as claimed in claim 27, further comprising image pickup direction adjusting means for adjusting an image pickup direction of the image pickup means based on an output of the position detecting means.