Situation determining apparatus, situation determining method, situation determining program, abnormality determining apparatus, abnormality determining method, abnormality determining program, and congestion estimating apparatus

• US 8,472,715 B2
• Filed: 10/20/2008
• Issued: 06/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Yokomitsu, Sumio, Kondo, Kenji, Araki, Shoichi
• Primary Examiner(s): Drennan, Barry
• Assistant Examiner(s): Niu, Feng
• Application Number:
  US12/601,950
• Publication Number:
  US 20100177963A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,709 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 382/170
• CPC Class Codes: B61L 23/00 Control, warning or like safety means along the route or between vehicles or trains
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20012 Locally adaptive
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30232 Surveillance
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/20 Analysis of motion motion estimation for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/43, H04N19/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/52 Surveillance or monitoring of activities, e.g. for recognising suspicious objects recognising microscopic objects G06V20/69
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/04 using optical or ultrasonic detectors

Abstract

The invention provides a situation and abnormality determining apparatus, method, and program capable of easily determining the situation of a monitoring place and the degree of congestion. In addition, the invention provides a congestion estimating apparatus capable of easily and accurately estimating the degree of congestion of persons using an image. A situation determining apparatus for analyzing captured moving images or a plurality of captured still images to determine a movement situation and/or a degree of congestion of persons includes: a local image change ratio calculating unit that calculates a time change ratio of a brightness value in a local area of the captured images; and a situation determining unit that analyzes a histogram of the time change ratios of a plurality of local areas calculated by the local image change ratio calculating unit and determines the movement situation of the persons and/or the degree of congestion of the persons.

Claims

1. A situation determining apparatus for analyzing captured moving images or a plurality of captured still images to determine a movement situation and/or a degree of congestion of persons, the situation determining apparatus comprising:

a local image change ratio calculating unit that calculates a time change ratio of a brightness value in a local area of the captured images; and

a situation determining unit that analyzes a histogram of the time change ratios of a plurality of local areas calculated by the local image change ratio calculating unit and determines the movement situation of the persons and/or the degree of congestion of the persons,

wherein the movement situation includes at least a situation in which a moving route of the persons is limited to a first specific area in which there are moving persons, wherein other persons are standing in a second specific area that is offset from the first specific area in which there are moving persons and to which the moving route is limited.

2. The situation determining apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the situation determining unit includes a reference histogram storage unit and a histogram comparing unit.

3. The situation determining apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the situation determining unit includes a feature extracting unit, an identification reference storage unit, and an identifying unit.

4. The situation determining apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the movement situation includes at least a situation in which the moving route of the persons is deflected to one side.

5. An abnormality determining apparatus for analyzing moving images or a plurality of still images captured by an imaging unit that is provided at a platform of a station to determine an abnormal situation, the abnormality determining apparatus comprising:

the situation determining apparatus according to claim 1;

a train arrival detecting unit that detects an arrival of a train to the platform; and

an abnormality determining unit which determines that abnormality occurs when it is determined that the moving route of the persons is deflected to the one side as the situation determination result after a predetermined amount of time has elapsed from the acquisition of train arrival information by the train arrival detecting unit, on the basis of a situation determination result of the situation determining apparatus and the train arrival information obtained by the train arrival detecting unit.

6. The abnormality determining apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising:

a notifying unit that gives the determination result of the abnormality determining unit to a predetermined contact address when the abnormality determining unit determines that abnormality occurs.

7. A situation determining apparatus for analyzing captured moving images or a plurality of captured still images to determine a movement situation and/or a degree of congestion of persons, the situation determining apparatus comprising:

an image input unit that inputs moving images or a plurality of still images of persons captured in an imaging target place;

an image accumulating unit that accumulates the images input by the image input unit;

a local image change detecting unit that selects two images captured at a first time interval from the images accumulated in the image accumulating unit and detects a change between the two images in each local area using area division information indicating a division method of dividing the image into a plurality of local areas;

a local image change information accumulating unit that accumulates the change between the two images detected by the local image change detecting unit as image change information;

a local image change ratio calculating unit that counts the number of changes between images given at a second time interval in each local area on the basis of the image change information accumulated in the local image change information accumulating unit, and calculates an image change ratio of each local area;

a local image change ratio accumulating unit that accumulates the image change ratios of a plurality of local areas calculated by the local image change ratio calculating unit;

a local image change ratio histogram calculating unit that calculates a histogram of the image change ratios of the plurality of local areas accumulated by the local image change ratio accumulating unit; and

a situation determining unit that analyzes the histogram calculated by the local image change ratio histogram calculating unit to determine the movement situation and or the degree of congestion of the persons in the imaging target place.

8. A situation determining method of analyzing captured moving images or a plurality of captured still images to determine a movement situation and/or a degree of congestion of persons, the situation determining method comprising:

a local image change ratio calculating step of calculating a time change ratio of a brightness value in a local area of the captured images; and

a situation determining step of analyzing a histogram of the time change ratios of a plurality of local areas calculated by the local image change ratio calculating step and determining the movement situation of the persons and/or the degree of congestion of the persons,

wherein the movement situation includes at least a situation in which a moving route of the persons is limited to a first specific area in which there are moving persons, wherein other persons are standing in a second specific area that is offset from the first specific area in which there are moving persons and to which the moving route is limited.

9. The situation determining method according to claim 8, wherein the movement situation includes at least a situation in which the moving route of the persons is deflected to one side.

10. An abnormality determining method of analyzing moving images or a plurality of still images captured by an imaging unit that is provided at a platform of a station to determine an abnormal situation, the abnormality determining method comprising:

a situation determining step of performing the situation determining method of claim 8;

a train arrival detecting step of detecting an arrival of a train to the platform; and

an abnormality determining step of determining that abnormality occurs when it is determined that the moving route of the persons is deflected to the one side as the situation determination result after a predetermined amount of time has elapsed from the acquisition of train arrival information by the train arrival detecting unit, on the basis of a situation determination result of the situation determining step and the train arrival information obtained by the train arrival detecting step.

11. A storage medium for recording an abnormality determining program that analyzes moving images or a plurality of still images captured by an imaging unit that is provided at a platform of a station to determine an abnormal situation, the abnormality determining program allowing a computer to execute:

a situation determining step of performing the situation determining method of claim 8;

a train arrival detecting step of detecting an arrival of a train to the platform; and

an abnormality determining step of determining that abnormality occurs when it is determined that the moving route of the persons is deflected to the one side as the situation determination result after a predetermined amount of time has elapsed from the acquisition of train arrival information by the train arrival detecting unit, on the basis of a situation determination result of the situation determining step and the train arrival information obtained by the train arrival detecting step.

12. A storage medium for recording a situation determining program that analyzes captured moving images or a plurality of captured still images to determine a movement situation and/or a degree of congestion of persons, the situation determining program allowing a computer to execute:

a local image change ratio calculating step of calculating a time change ratio of a brightness value in a local area of the captured images; and

a situation determining step of analyzing a histogram of the time change ratios of a plurality of local areas calculated by the local image change ratio calculating step and determining the movement situation of the persons and/or the degree of congestion of the persons,

wherein the movement situation includes at least a situation in which a moving route of the persons is limited to a first specific area in which there are moving persons, wherein other persons are standing in a second specific area that is offset from the first specific area in which there are moving persons and to which the moving route is limited.

13. The storage medium according to claim 12, wherein the movement situation includes at least a situation in which the moving route of the persons is deflected to one side.

14. A situation determining apparatus for analyzing captured moving images or a plurality of captured still images to determine a movement situation and/or a degree of congestion of persons, the situation determining apparatus comprising:

an image input unit that inputs moving images or a plurality of still images of persons captured in an imaging target place;

an image accumulating unit that accumulates the images input by the image input unit;

a local image change detecting unit that selects two images captured at a first time interval from the images accumulated in the image accumulating unit and detects a change between the two images in each local area using area division information indicating a division method of dividing the image into a plurality of local areas;

a local image change information accumulating unit that accumulates the change between the two images detected by the local image change detecting unit as image change information;

a local image change ratio calculating unit that counts the number of changes between images given at a second time interval in each local area on the basis of the image change information accumulated in the local image change information accumulating unit, and calculates an image change ratio of each local area; and

a situation determining unit that analyzes a histogram of the image change ratios of the plurality of local areas calculated by the local image change ratio calculating unit to determine the movement situation and/or the degree of congestion of the persons in the imaging target place.