Method for randomly accessing stored imagery and a field inspection system employing the same

• US 6,175,380 B1
• Filed: 02/26/1998
• Issued: 01/16/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Peninsular Technologies LLC
• Original Assignee: Peninsular Technologies LLC
• Inventors: Van Den Bosch, Jeffrey A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Young
• Application Number:
  US09/029,285
• Time in Patent Office: 1,055 Days
• Field of Search: H04/N.718, 348/61, 348/82, 348/84, 348/85, 348/125, 340/825.06, 340/825.16, 324/512, 395/2.68
• US Class Current: 348/84
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 2200/22 Fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence, neural networks or the like
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 47/002 by visual inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/00 Image coding bandwidth or redundancy reduction for static pictures H04N1/41; coding or decoding of static colour picture signals H04N1/64; methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/00

Abstract

The present invention relates to a field inspection system (100) for compressing video signals received from a field inspection video camera (14) into compressed video data and for burning the compressed video data on a compact disc (118) along with an electronic logsheet. The electronic logsheet includes a listing of suspected defects or anomalies and associated pointers to reference frames in the compressed video data. The electronic logsheet may be displayed and an operator may access a portion of the field inspection video showing a listed defect by clicking a mouse button (116) when a pointer icon is positioned on the listed defect. To perform this task, the present invention utilizes a technique for randomly accessing the compressed video data in which reference frames included therein are used as access points to the video footage.

Claims

1. A field inspection system comprising:

receiving means for receiving image signals representing continuous image footage of the field item under inspection;

compressing means for compressing the received image signals to provide compressed image data having a plurality of sequential frames including reference frames; and

means for creating an electronic logsheet including a table listing points of interest recorded in the image footage and, for each point of interest, a pointer identifying a reference frame of said compressed image data closest to a beginning point of the image footage showing the associated point of interest such that said electronic logsheet may subsequently be displayed to allow the user to select one of the listed points of interest using an input device and to thereby access and view the continuous image footage showing the selected point of interest.

2. The field inspection system as defined in claim 1, and further including means for storing said compressed image data and said logsheet.

3. The field inspection system as defined in claim 1, and further including means for burning said compressed image data and said logsheet in a compact disk.

4. The field inspection system as defined in claim 1, and further including:

display means for displaying said table;

input means for permitting a user to select a point of interest listed on said table;

decompressing means for decompressing frames of said compressed image data and for initially decompressing a reference frame corresponding to the reference frame identified by the pointer associated with the selected point of interest; and

playback control means for controlling the playback of the image footage by selecting frames within said compressed image data for said decompressing means to decompress, and for providing the decompressed frames to said display means for display of the video footage to the user.

5. The field inspection system as defined in claim 1 and further including means for generating and overlaying graphic characters on the image signals representing locations of each point of interest listed on the electronic logsheet.

6. The field inspection system as defined in claim 5 and further including means for automatically creating said pointers by reading location data from said electronic logsheet for each listed point of interest, identifying said graphic characters overlaid on the image signals that correspond to the location data for each listed point of interest, identifying the closest reference frame to a point in the image footage where the corresponding overlaid graphics first appear, and creating an entry in said electronic logsheet for each listed point of interest representing the identified reference frame.

7. The field inspection system as defined in claim 1, wherein said compressing means compresses the received image signal as it is incoming and outputs the compressed image data as a computer-readable digital data signal that may be stored in a computer-readable medium.

8. The field inspection system as defined in claim 1, wherein said compressing means compresses the received image signal as it is incoming and outputs the compressed image data as a computer-readable digital data signal that may be stored on a computer hard disk drive.

9. A pipeline inspection system for inspecting pipelines, comprising:

receiving means for receiving an image signal representing continuous image footage of the pipeline under inspection;

compressing means for compressing the received image signal to provide compressed image data having a plurality of sequential frames including reference frames; and

means for creating an electronic logsheet including a table listing suspected defects and/or anomalies in the pipeline recorded in the image footage and, for each suspected defect and anomaly, a pointer identifying a reference frame of said compressed image data closest to a beginning point of the image footage showing the associated suspected defect or anomaly such that said electronic logsheet may subsequently be displayed to allow a user to select one of the listed suspected defects and/or anomalies using an input device and to thereby access and view the continuous image footage showing the selected suspected defect or anomaly.

10. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 9, and further including means for storing said compressed image data and said logsheet.

11. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 9, and further including means for burning said compressed image data and said logsheet in a compact disk.

12. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 9, and further including:

display means for displaying said table;

input means for permitting a user to select a suspected defect or anomaly listed on said table;

decompressing means for decompressing frames of said compressed image data and for initially decompressing a reference frame corresponding to the reference frame identified by the pointer associated with the selected suspected defect or anomaly; and

playback control means for controlling the playback of the image footage by selecting frames within said compressed image data for said decompressing means to decompress, and for providing the decompressed frames to said display means for display of the image footage to the user.

13. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 9 and further including means for generating and overlaying graphic characters on the image signals representing locations of each suspected defect or anomaly listed on the electronic logsheet.

14. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 13 and further including means for automatically creating said pointers by reading location data from said electronic logsheet for each listed defect or anomaly, identifying said graphic characters overlaid on the image signals that correspond to the location data for each listed defect or anomaly, identifying the closest reference frame to a point in the image footage where the corresponding overlaid graphics first appear, and creating an entry in said electronic logsheet for each listed defect or anomaly representing the identified referenced frame.

15. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 9 and further including defect identification means for receiving the image signals, analyzing the image footage, and for detecting and identifying defects in the pipeline under inspection.

16. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 15 and further including means for recommending a course of action for repairing each identified defect.

17. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 16 and further including means for generating a report including a listing of each defect, the location of each defect, the recommended course of action for repairing each identified defect, and a still frame image of each identified defect.

18. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 9, wherein said compressing means compresses the received video signal as it is incoming and outputs the compressed video data as a computer-readable digital data signal that may be stored in a computer-readable medium.

19. A pipeline inspection system for inspecting pipelines, comprising:

receiving means for receiving an image signal representing continuous image footage of the pipeline under inspection;

compressing means for compressing the received image signal to provide compressed image data having a plurality of sequential frames including reference frames;

means for creating an electronic logsheet including a table listing suspected defects and/or anomalies in the pipeline recorded in the image footage and, for each suspected defect and anomaly, a pointer identifying a reference frame of said compressed image data closest to a beginning point of the image footage showing the associated suspected defect or anomaly; and

defect identification means for receiving the image signals, analyzing the image footage, and for detecting and identifying defects in the pipeline under inspection, wherein said defect identification means includes a neural network.

20. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 19, wherein said compressing means compresses the received image signal as it is incoming and outputs the compressed image data as a computer-readable digital data signal that may be stored in a computer-readable medium.

21. The pipeline inspection system as defined in claim 19, wherein said defect identification means includes at least one computer hardware board for high frame rate machine vision combined with neural networking software.

23. The data structure as defined in claim 21, wherein said continuous image footage is continuous image footage of a pipeline inspection, said table is a logsheet listing suspected defects in the inspected pipeline, and said identifiers identify the suspected defects.

22. A data structure stored on a computer-readable medium comprising:

compressed image data having a plurality of frames including a plurality of reference frames, said compressed image data representing continuous image footage in compressed form; and

a table associating an identifier for each portion of the continuous image footage to be accessed with a pointer corresponding to the closest reference frame to the first frame of the portion of the continuous image footage to be accessed such that said table may subsequently be displayed to allow a user to select one of the identifiers stored in said table using an input device and to thereby access and view the portion of the continuous image footage corresponding to the selected identifier.

24. An inspection system comprising:

an imaging device for producing image signals representing continuous image footage of an item under inspection;

defect identification means for receiving the image signals, analyzing the continuous image footage, and for detecting and identifying defects in the item under inspection;

a memory for storing the image signals as image data; and

means for creating and storing in said memory, an electronic logsheet listing the identified defects and a location in the stored image data for each identified defect, corresponding to a portion of the continuous image footage that shows the associated defect.

25. The inspection system as defined in claim 24, wherein said defect identification means includes a neural network.

26. The inspection system as defined in claim 25, wherein said defect identification means includes at least one computer hardware board for high frame rate machine vision combined with neural networking software.

27. The inspection system as defined in claim 24 and further including means for recommending a course of action for repairing each identified defect.

28. The inspection system as defined in claim 27 and further including means for generating a report including a listing of each defect, the location of each defect, the recommended course of action for repairing each identified defect, and a still frame image of each identified defect.

29. A computer-implemented method of randomly accessing continuous image footage stored in compressed form on a computer-readable medium, the compressed image footage having a plurality of frames including a plurality of reference frames, the method comprising the steps of:

creating a table associating an identifier for each portion of the image footage to be accessed with a pointer corresponding to the closest reference frame to the first frame of the portion of the image footage to be accessed;

inputting an identifier for a selected portion of the image footage to be accessed;

accessing said table to identify the closest reference frame to the first frame of the selected portion of the image footage to be accessed;

decompressing the compressed image footage starting with the identified reference frame; and

displaying the selected portion of the decompressed image footage.

30. A method of accessing stored field inspection data and compressed image data representing a field inspection continuous image, the method comprising the steps of:

reading and displaying the field inspection data in tabular form listing points of interest in the field inspection imagery;

cross-referencing each of the listed points of interest with one of a plurality of reference frames within the compressed image data corresponding to a beginning point of a portion of the field inspection imagery that shows the associated point of interest;

storing a pointer to the cross-referenced frame in association with each point of interest;

selecting a point of interest listed in the displayed field inspection data;

decompressing a reference frame identified by a pointer associated with the selected point of interest; and

displaying the decompressed reference frame on a display monitor.

31. A computer-implemented method of randomly accessing a selected portion of continuous video footage stored in compressed form on a computer-readable medium, the compressed video footage having a plurality of frames including a plurality of reference frames, the method comprising the steps of:

creating a data reference for each portion of the video footage to be randomly accessed;

displaying each data reference on a display device to allow a user to select a portion of the video footage to be accessed by selecting a corresponding displayed data reference;

decompressing the compressed video footage starting with a reference frame that precedes the selected portion of the video footage; and

displaying the selected portion of the decompressed video footage.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein each displayed data reference points to a reference frame of said compressed video footage closest to a beginning point of the selected portion of the video footage.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein each data reference corresponds to a point of interest in the video footage.

34. The method of claim 31, wherein each data reference is displayed in a table, list, or grid that is displayed on the display device.

35. The method of claim 31, wherein said continuous video footage is compressed in MPEG format and said reference frames are I-frames.

36. A method of accessing stored field inspection data and compressed video data representing a field inspection video, the method comprising the steps of:

reading and displaying the field inspection data that identifies points of interest in the field inspection video;

cross-referencing each of the listed points of interest with one of a plurality of reference frames within the compressed video data corresponding to a beginning point of a portion of the field inspection video that shows an associated point of interest;

selecting a point of interest listed in the displayed field inspection data;

decompressing a reference frame identified by the selected point of interest; and

displaying the decompressed reference frame on a display monitor.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein said compressed video data is compressed in MPEG format and said reference frames are I-frames.

38. A computer-readable medium having a data structure stored thereon, said data structure comprising:

compressed image data having a plurality of frames including a plurality of reference frames, said compressed image data representing continuous image footage in compressed form; and

a plurality of data references each identifying a portion of the image footage to be accessed, where each said data reference is linked to the identified portion of the image footage such that when the data reference is displayed on a display device and a user selects the data reference, the compressed image data may be decompressed starting at a reference frame preceding the first frame of the identified portion of the video footage.

39. The computer-readable medium as defined in claim 38, wherein said image footage is video footage of a pipeline inspection, said data references correspond to suspected defects in the inspected pipeline, and each portion of the video footage identified by a data reference shows a suspected defect.

40. The computer-readable medium as defined in claim 38, wherein said medium is a digital disc.

41. The computer-readable medium as defined in claim 38, wherein said image footage is video footage compressed in MPEG format, and said reference frames are I-frames.