IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

• US 20080247601A1
• Filed: 03/28/2008
• Published: 10/09/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Kokusai Electric Incorporated (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Kokusai Electric Incorporated (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: Takahashi, Kazuya, Ito, Wataru, ITO, Mitsue
• Granted Patent: US 8,218,814 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30196 Human being; Person
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30232 Surveillance
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30241 Trajectory
• 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: G08B 13/19602 Image analysis to detect motion of the intruder, e.g. by frame subtraction

Abstract

An image processing apparatus such as a monitor system for executing image processing to present a suspicious object effectively. An object detecting unit detects an object contained in an image, an associating unit associates a plurality of objects detected with the object detecting unit, with each other, and an evaluating unit evaluates (e.g., evaluation as being suspicious) an object detected by the object detecting unit, and an association evaluating unit evaluates another object associated by the associating unit with the object evaluated by the evaluating unit, in accordance with the evaluation made by the evaluating unit.

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus comprising:

object detecting means for detecting each object contained in an image; and

associating means for associating a plurality of objects detected with said object detecting means, with each other.

2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

evaluating means for evaluating each object detected with said object detecting means, in accordance with a predetermined judgement criterion; and

association evaluating means for evaluating another object associated by said associating means with the object evaluated by said evaluating means, in accordance with the evaluation made by said evaluating means.

3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said associating means associates said plurality of objects with each other, in accordance with one or more of a case in which a plurality of objects are coupled to one object, a case in which one object is separated into a plurality of objects, and a case in which distances among a plurality of objects become shorter than a predetermined threshold value.

4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said associating means associates said plurality of objects with each other, in accordance with one or more of a case in which a plurality of objects are coupled to one object, a case in which one object is separated into a plurality of objects, and a case in which distances among a plurality of objects become shorter than a predetermined threshold value.

5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising displaying means for displaying said plurality of objects detected with said object detecting means in a display style representative of association of said plurality of objects.

6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said predetermined judgement criterion includes whether each of said objects exists in a specific area of the image.

7. An image processing method, comprising the steps of:

detecting each object contained in an image; and

associating a plurality of objects detected at said object detecting step with each other.

8. The image processing method according to claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

evaluating each object detected with said object detecting means, in accordance with a predetermined judgement criterion; and

evaluating another object associated at said associating step with the object evaluated at said evaluating step, in accordance with the evaluation made at said evaluating step.

9. The image processing method according to claim 7, wherein said associating step associates said plurality of objects with each other, in accordance with one or more of a case in which a plurality of objects are coupled to one object, a case in which one object is separated into a plurality of objects, and a case in which distances among a plurality of objects become shorter than a predetermined threshold value.

10. The image processing method according to claim 8, wherein said associating step associates said plurality of objects with each other, in accordance with one or more of a case in which a plurality of objects are coupled to one object, a case in which one object is separated into a plurality of objects, and a case in which distances among a plurality of objects become shorter than a predetermined threshold value.

11. The image processing method according to claim 7, further comprising a step of displaying said plurality of objects detected at said object detecting step in a display style representative of association of said plurality of objects.

12. The image processing method according to claim 8, wherein said predetermined judgement criterion includes whether each of said objects exists in a specific area of the image.

13. A computer program embodied on a computer readable medium having computer readable program code means embodied in said medium for processing an image, said computer readable program code means comprising:

object detecting means for detecting each image contained in said image; and

associating means for associating a plurality of objects detected with said object detecting means with each other.

14. The computer program according to claim 13, wherein said computer readable program code means further comprises:

evaluating means for evaluating each object detected with said object detecting means, in accordance with a predetermined judgement criterion; and

association evaluating means for evaluating another object associated by said associating means with the object evaluated by said evaluating means, in accordance with the evaluation made by said evaluating means.

15. The computer program according to claim 13, wherein said associating means associates said plurality of objects with each other, in accordance with one or more of a case in which a plurality of objects are coupled to one object, a case in which one object is separated into a plurality of objects, and a case in which distances among a plurality of objects become shorter than a predetermined threshold value.

16. The computer program according to claim 14, wherein said associating means associates said plurality of objects with each other, in accordance with one or more of a case in which a plurality of objects are coupled to one object, a case in which one object is separated into a plurality of objects, and a case in which distances among a plurality of objects become shorter than a predetermined threshold value.