Drive assistance device

• US 9,308,862 B2
• Filed: 03/23/2007
• Issued: 04/12/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Fujita, Hideto, Ishii, Yohei, Hongo, Hitoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Fan, Hua
• Application Number:
  US12/294,829
• Publication Number:
  US 20100165104A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,308 Days
• Field of Search: 348/148, 348/252, 348/746
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/00 Optical viewing arrangements; Real-time viewing arrangements for drivers or passengers using optical image capturing systems, e.g. cameras or video systems specially adapted for use in or on vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/30 characterised by the type of image processing
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/402 Image calibration
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/00 Geometric image transformations in the plane of the image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/047 Fisheye or wide-angle transformations
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/80 Geometric correction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/631 Graphical user interfaces [GUI] specially adapted for controlling image capture or setting capture parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/61 the noise originating only from the lens unit, e.g. flare, shading, vignetting or "cos4"

Abstract

A drive assistance device has an imaging device (1) mounted on a vehicle body and imaging a region surrounding the vehicle body, lens distortion correction means (2) for performing lens distortion correction for an inputted image taken by the imaging device (1), and a display (3) for displaying the image obtained by the lens distortion correcting means (2). The lens distortion correction means (2) divides the inputted image into multiple regions and performs lens distortion correction for each of the regions with different distortion correction level.

Claims

1. A drive assistance device comprising:

an imaging device mountable on a vehicle body for capturing an input image of a part of the vehicle body and a region surrounding the vehicle body;

lens distortion correction device for performing lens distortion correction on an input image captured by the imaging device, the input image having a plurality of pixels arranged in rows and columns; and

a display for displaying a corrected input image created by the lens distortion correction device,

wherein the lens distortion correction device;

divides the input image into;

a first input image section including the part of the vehicle body, the first input image section having multiple first input image section pixel rows; and

one or more additional input image sections, each one or more additional input image section having multiple additional input image section pixel rows; and

performs a first lens distortion correction on the first input image section and a separate lens distortion correction on each of the one or more additional input image correction sections

wherein, the one or more additional image sections are based, at least in part, on the distance of the vehicle surrounding region included in the additional image section from the vehicle body and the angle of depression of the imaging device used to capture the additional image section;

wherein, the first input image section lens distortion correction is constant in strength and is equal to or greater than the one or more additional input image section lens distortion correction.

4. The drive assistance device according to any one of claim 1, 2, or 3, comprising

region setting unit for setting the first input image section and the one or more additional input image sections;

and

distortion correction level decision unit for deciding a corresponding distortion correction level for an input image section set by the region setting unit, wherein

the lens distortion correction unit performs lens distortion correction based at least in part on the corresponding distortion correction level for the respective region decided by the distortion correction level decision unit on the input image.

5. The drive assistance device according to any one of claim 1, 2, or 3, comprising

temporary input image section setting unit for temporarily setting the the first input image section and the one or more additional input image sections;

temporary distortion correction level decision unit for temporarily deciding a temporary distortion correction level for an input image section temporarily set by the temporary region setting-unit,

a display unit configured to display an effect of distortion correction, based at least in part on the temporary distortion correction level for the input image section temporarily decided by the temporary distortion correction level decision unit, on the display with grid lines, and

formal setting unit for formally setting the temporary distortion correction level for the input image section temporarily decided by the temporary distortion correction level decision unit as an intrinsic distortion correction level for the input image section, wherein

the lens distortion correction device performs lens distortion correction based at least in part on the intrinsic distortion correction level for the input image section formally set by the formal setting unit on the input image.

2. A drive assistance device comprising:

an imaging device mountable on a vehicle body for capturing an input image of a part of the vehicle body and a region surrounding the vehicle body;

a lens distortion correction device for performing lens distortion correction on an input image captured by the imaging device, the input image having a plurality of pixels arranged in rows and columns; and

a display for displaying a corrected input image created by the lens distortion correction device,

wherein the lens distortion correction device;

divides the input image into;

a first input image section including the part of the vehicle body, the first input image section having multiple first input image section pixel rows; and

a plurality of additional input image sections, each of the plurality of additional image sections having multiple additional input image section pixel rows, and

performs a first lens distortion correction on the first input image section and a separate lens distortion correction on each of the plurality of additional input image sections wherein a level of distortion correction varies depending based on the input image section such that;

for the first input image section, the level of distortion correction is equal to or stronger than a strongest distortion correction level for any of the plurality of additional input image sections, as well as constant in strength; and

for the additional input image that is most distant from the vehicle body, the level of distortion correction is equal to or weaker than the weakest distortion correction level of the distortion correction levels of any of the other plurality of additional input image sections, as well as constant in strength;

for each of the plurality of additional input image sections not most distant from the vehicle body, the level of distortion is weaker the further the additional input image is from the first input image.

3. A drive assistance device comprising:

an imaging device mountable on a vehicle body for capturing an input image of a part of the vehicle body and a region surrounding the vehicle body;

a lens distortion correction device for performing lens distortion correction on the input image captured by the imaging device, the input image having a plurality of pixels arranged in rows and columns; and

a display for displaying a corrected input image created by the lens distortion correction device,

wherein the lens distortion correction device;

divides the input image into;

a first input image section including the part of the vehicle body, the first input image section having multiple first input image section pixel rows; and

one or more additional input image sections, each one or more additional image section having multiple additional input image section pixel rows; and

performs a first lens distortion correction on the first input image section and a separate lens distortion correction on each of the one or more additional input image correction sections;

wherein, the one or more additional image sections are based, at least in part, on the distance of the vehicle surrounding region included in the additional input image section from the vehicle body and the angle of depression of the imaging device used to capture the additional image section;

wherein, the first input image section lens distortion correction is constant in strength and is equal to or greater than the one or more additional input image section lens distortion correction.