Combined digital and mechanical tracking of a person or object using a single video camera
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented process for generating a video using a single digital video camera that tracks a person or object of interest moving in a scene, comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions:
- on a periodic basis,tracking the movement of a person or object of interest in a scene,determining if the movement of the person or object being tracked has been detected within a prescribed period of time,whenever the movement has not been detected within the prescribed period of time, zooming the video camera out to a prescribed minimum level so as to maximize the field of view,whenever the movement has been detected within the prescribed period of time,digitally tracking the person or object of interest within the last frame captured by the video camera by identifying a cropping region defined as a prescribed-sized sub-region of the last frame captured by the video camera that shows at least part of the person or object of interest whenever the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is shown completely within a prescribed-sized portion of the last frame captured by the video camera, andmechanically tracking the person or object of interest by mechanically panning the video camera in some circumstances where the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is not shown completely within the prescribed-sized portion of the last frame captured by the video camera so as to show at least part of the person or object of interest in an identified cropping region of the last frame captured by the video camera after the mechanical panning is complete; and
generating a video that shows the person or object of interest as that person or object moves through the scene by making each consecutive one of said identified cropping regions a consecutive frame of the video.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A combined digital and mechanical tracking system and process for generating a video using a single digital video camera that tracks a person or object of interest moving in a scene is presented. This generally involves operating the camera at a higher resolution than is needed for the application, and cropping a sub-region out of the image captured that is output as the output video. The person or object being tracked is at least partially contained within the cropped sub-region. As the person or object moves within the field of view of the camera, the location of the cropped sub-region is also moved so as to keep the subject of interest within its boundaries. When the subject of interest moves to the boundary of the FOV of the camera, the camera is mechanically panned to keep the person or object inside its FOV.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented process for generating a video using a single digital video camera that tracks a person or object of interest moving in a scene, comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions:
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on a periodic basis, tracking the movement of a person or object of interest in a scene, determining if the movement of the person or object being tracked has been detected within a prescribed period of time, whenever the movement has not been detected within the prescribed period of time, zooming the video camera out to a prescribed minimum level so as to maximize the field of view, whenever the movement has been detected within the prescribed period of time, digitally tracking the person or object of interest within the last frame captured by the video camera by identifying a cropping region defined as a prescribed-sized sub-region of the last frame captured by the video camera that shows at least part of the person or object of interest whenever the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is shown completely within a prescribed-sized portion of the last frame captured by the video camera, and mechanically tracking the person or object of interest by mechanically panning the video camera in some circumstances where the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is not shown completely within the prescribed-sized portion of the last frame captured by the video camera so as to show at least part of the person or object of interest in an identified cropping region of the last frame captured by the video camera after the mechanical panning is complete; and generating a video that shows the person or object of interest as that person or object moves through the scene by making each consecutive one of said identified cropping regions a consecutive frame of the video. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A system for generating a video that tracks a person or object of interest moving in a scene, comprising:
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a digital video camera disposed so as to view a part of the scene and which is capable of mechanically panning so as to view other parts of the scene; a general purpose computing device; and a computer program comprising program modules executable by the computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to, track the movement of a person or object of interest in a scene, determine if the movement of the person or object being tracked has been detected within a prescribed period of time, whenever the movement has not been detected within the prescribed period of time, zoom the video camera out to a prescribed minimum level so as to maximize the field of view, whenever the movement has been detected within the prescribed period of time, produce frames of the video being generated using prescribed sized sub-regions of frames captured by the video camera wherein each sub-region shows at least part of the person or object of interest, and wherein said sub-region in each video camera frame is identified by tracking the person or object of interest via digital or mechanical panning based on the detected motion, wherein digital panning is used whenever the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is shown completely within a prescribed-sized portion a frame captured by the video camera and mechanical panning is used when the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is not shown completely within the prescribed-sized portion the frame captured by the video camera. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A system for generating a video that tracks a person or object of interest moving in a scene, comprising:
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a digital video camera disposed so as to view a part of the scene and which is capable of mechanically panning so as to view other parts of the scene; a general purpose computing device; and a computer program comprising program modules executable by the computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to, detect movement of the person or object being tracked, produce frames of the video being generated using prescribed-sized sub-regions of frames captured by the video camera wherein each sub-region shows at least part of the person or object of interest, and wherein said sub-region in each video camera frame is identified by tracking the person or object of interest via digital or mechanical panning based on the detected motion, wherein digital panning is used whenever the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is shown completely within a prescribed-sized portion a frame captured by the video camera and mechanical panning is used when the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is not shown completely within the prescribed-sized portion the frame captured by the video camera, and wherein, each prescribed-sized sub-region is a cropping region have a user-specified height and width, and a fixed user-specified vertical position within the video frames captured by the camera, and wherein producing frames of the video using digital panning comprises, for each frame produced, determining if the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is shown completely within, partial within or completely outside a safety region in the last frame captured by the video camera, wherein said safety region is defined as a sub-region in the last-captured video frame corresponding to a sub-region of a previously captured frame used to produce the last previous frame of the video being generated, that has lateral side boundaries which are offset in from the lateral side boundaries of the cropping region associated with said previously captured frame by a prescribed distance, whenever the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is shown completely within a safety region in the last frame captured by the video camera, establishing the location of the cropping region associated with the last-captured frame as the same as the cropping region associated with said previously captured frame, whenever the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is partially within the safety region in the last frame captured by the video camera but has not been for a prescribed period of time, establishing the location of the cropping region associated with the last-captured frame as the same as the cropping region associated with said previously captured frame, and whenever the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is partially within the safety region in the last frame captured by the video camera and has been for the prescribed period of time, or is completely outside the safety region, establishing the location of the cropping region in the last-captured frame by, identifying the side of the safety region in the last-captured frame that the detected motion indicates the person or object being tracked is adjacent to or straddling, and computing the separation distance between the corresponding side of a lateral segment representing the width of the person or object being tracked as indicated by the detected motion and the identified side of the safety segment, and establishing the cropping region location as the location of the cropping region established for said previously captured frame shifted in the direction of the identified side of the safety segment by said separation distance.
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Specification