Method for operating a camera assembly, camera assembly and driver assistance system

• US 9,659,386 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2012
• Issued: 05/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Connaught Electronics Limited (Valeo SE)
• Original Assignee: Connaught Electronics Limited (Valeo SE)
• Inventors: Burke, Michael, Denny, Patrick Eoghan
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Peter D
• Application Number:
  US14/364,564
• Publication Number:
  US 20140333757A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,628 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/002 specially adapted for covering the peripheral part of the vehicle, e.g. for viewing tyres, bumpers or the like integrated in the windows B60R1/001; combined with rear-view mirrors B60R1/08
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/105 using multiple cameras
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/303 using joined images, e.g. multiple camera images
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/304 using merged images, e.g. merging camera image with stored images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/00 2D [Two Dimensional] image generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/001 Texturing; Colouring; Generation of texture or colour inpainting G06T5/77
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20221 Image fusion; Image merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4038 Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/80 Camera processing pipelines; Components thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for operating a camera assembly, in which a first camera and a second camera capture images (36, 42). Respective fields of view of the two cameras overlap at least in a partial region (24). At least in an image (36) captured by the first camera, at least one contamination region (38) including a plurality of pixels is detected within the partial region (24). Thereupon, data values specifying the respective transparency of the pixels in the at least one contamination region (38) are varied with respect to respective reference values of the transparency, wherein these reference values increase in the partial region (24) towards an edge (28) of the respective image upon superimposition of the images. Furthermore, the invention relates to a camera assembly.

Claims

1. A method for operating a camera assembly for a vehicle, in which a first camera and a second camera capture images, wherein respective fields of view of the two cameras overlap at least in a partial region, and in which at least in an image captured by the first camera at least one contamination region including a plurality of pixels is detected within the partial region, the method comprising:

altering data values specifying the respective transparency of the pixels in the at least one contamination region with respect to respective reference values of the transparency, which increase in the partial region towards an edge of the respective image upon superimposition of the images,

wherein in the image captured by the second camera, the data values specifying the respective transparency of pixels in an image region superimposed with the at least one contamination region are decreased with respect to the respective reference values, and

wherein that the data value of a pixel specifying the transparency in the image captured by the first camera is increased by an amount, by which the data value of a pixel superimposed with this pixel in the image captured by the second camera is decreased.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein in the partial region, in which the image captured by the first camera and the image captured by the second camera overlap, the data values specifying the opacity of pixels of the two images superimposed with each other result in a value of 1 in sum on a scale ranging from zero to 1.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein in the image captured by the first camera, in at least one edge region of the contamination region, the data values specifying the respective transparency of pixels are decreased with respect to the respective reference values, wherein in the image captured by the second camera, in the at least one edge region, the data values are increased with respect to the respective reference values.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein in the detection of the at least one contamination region in the image captured by the first camera, it is taken into account whether in the image captured by the second camera a structure corresponding to the at least one contamination region is present in an image region superimposed with the at least one contamination region.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising means of an evaluation device associated with the respective camera, it is checked whether the at least one contamination region is present in the image captured by the first camera and in the image captured by the second camera.

6. A camera assembly, for a vehicle,

comprising

a first camera;

and

a second camera for capturing respective images,

wherein respective fields of view of the two cameras overlap at least in a partial region, and

including

at least one evaluation device, by means of which at least in an image captured by the first camera at least one contamination region including a plurality of pixels is detectable within the partial region,

wherein the camera assembly includes an image processing device, by means of which data values specifying the respective transparency of the pixels in the at least one contamination region are alterable with respect to respective reference values increasing towards an edge of the respective image upon superimposition of the images in the partial region,

wherein in the respective image captured by the second camera, the data values specifying the respective transparency of pixels in an image region superimposed with the at least one contamination region are decreased with respect to the respective reference values, and

wherein that the data value of a pixel specifying the transparency in the image captured by the first camera is increased by an amount, by which the data value of a pixel superimposed with this pixel in the image captured by the second camera is decreased.

7. The driver assistance system with a camera assembly according to claim 6, wherein an output of the camera assembly is utilizable by at least one functional unit of the driver assistance system.