Image pickup apparatus with object tracking capability

• US 7,916,172 B2
• Filed: 09/12/2006
• Issued: 03/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Kagei, Kenji
• Primary Examiner(s): Ye; Lin
• Assistant Examiner(s): DAGNEW, MEKONNEN D
• Application Number:
  US11/531,085
• Publication Number:
  US 20070058046A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,659 Days
• Field of Search: 348/208.14, 348169-172, 348143-158, 348/211.14, 382/165, 382/103
• US Class Current: 348/169
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/7865 using correlation of the live video image with a stored image

Abstract

The present invention provides an image pickup apparatus for automatically tracking an object to pick up an image of the object, and the image apparatus comprises; a lens apparatus including a zoom lens and a focus lens, the lens apparatus picking up an image of the object; a camera device for picking up an image of the object acquired by the lens apparatus; a universal head for driving pan and tilt of the camera device; a memory for recording trace data of the universal head and image information picked up in synchronization with the trace data; an object recognizing circuit for recognizing the object; a shift amount detection unit for detecting a shift amount between the object and the trace data; and a control device for controlling the driving operation of the universal head based on the trace data and the shift amount.

Claims

1. An image pickup apparatus for automatically tracking an object to pick up an image of the object, comprising:

a lens apparatus including a zoom lens and a focus lens, the lens apparatus picking up an image of the object;

a camera device provided with said lens apparatus for picking up an image of the object acquired by the lens apparatus;

a universal head for supporting said camera device and driving pan and tilt of the camera device,

a memory for recording pan data, tilt data, zoom data and focus data of said lens apparatus and said universal head, and a size data and a positional data of the image of the object, associated with time information, said pan data, tilt data, zoom data, focus data, size data and positional data being derived from tracking the object and picking up the image of the object;

a recognizing circuit for recognizing said object;

a shift amount detection unit for detecting a shift amount between the size data and the positional data of the image of the object recorded within the memory, and the size data and the positional data of the image of the object picked up by said camera device; and

a control device for controlling said lens apparatus and said camera device and said universal head on the basis of the shift amount detected by said shift amount detection unit and the pan data, tilt data, zoom data and focus data,

wherein in a case that said shift amount detection unit detects a positional shift between the positional data of the object recorded within the memory and the positional data of the object picked up by said camera device, said control device controls said universal head to drive the pan and tilt of said camera device so as to reduce the positional shift, and in a case that said shift amount detection unit detects a size shift between the size data of the object recorded within the memory and the size data of the object picked up by said camera device, said control device controls said lens apparatus to perform a zoom adjustment so as to reduce the size shift.

2. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

said shift amount detection unit detects a shift in a position of said object and a shift in a size of said object; and

said control device controls the pan and tilt driving operation of said universal head in response to said shift in the position of said object and controls the zoom and focus driving operation of said lens apparatus in response to said shift in the size of said object.

3. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said recognizing circuit recognizes said object based on at least one of color of said object or shape of the object.

4. The image pickup apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an editing unit for editing at least one of time data of said trace data or position data of said object.