JP2005286820A - Monitor system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a monitor system with a simple configuration capable of monitoring all of a wide monitoring object area without omission. <P>SOLUTION: The monitoring system is provided with: an omnidirectional camera (1) provided with a fisheye lens (2) for totally performing constant angle imaging to the whole of the monitoring object area; a video recording apparatus (3) for sequentially recording an omnidirectional image of the monitoring object area obtained from the omnidirectional camera by a lapse of time; a designation means (6) for designating a recording time of the omnidirectional image recorded on the video recording apparatus and selectively designating a monitoring area to be noted in the omnidirectional image; and image conversion means (7, 8) for reading the image at the designated time in the designated monitoring area in the omnidirectional image from the video recording apparatus, expanding the read image into a plane view image, and displaying the image. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a monitoring system that effectively utilizes an omnidirectional image of a monitoring target area imaged using a fisheye lens.

  An omnidirectional image that is imaged equiangularly using a fisheye lens accurately indicates the azimuth of the point of interest in the image (the azimuth angle θ from a preset reference azimuth and the depression angle φ from its central axis). However, on the other hand, since information from all directions is projected at the same distance, it cannot be denied that the planar image is distorted in an arc shape. Therefore, it has been proposed that an image of a region of interest in the omnidirectional image is developed in a plan view according to its orientation (azimuth angle θ, depression angle φ) to obtain a highly natural planar image (for example, Patent Document 1). , 2).

Then, by using such a planar view development technique, a monitoring image of a desired region in the monitoring target region is obtained in a state where a monitoring camera equipped with a fisheye lens is fixedly installed on the ceiling or the like, and image monitoring for monitoring this A system has been proposed. That is, it has been proposed to obtain a monitoring image in an arbitrary direction without remotely changing and controlling the viewing direction of the monitoring camera using a pan / tilt function.
Japanese Patent No. 3012142 Japanese Patent No. 3051173

  However, even if the above-described planar view development technique for the omnidirectional image is used, only a monitoring image of a specific area in the entire monitoring target area can be obtained. There is no difference from the surveillance image obtained by tilting. Rather, since only a part of the omnidirectional image is developed in plan view to obtain the monitoring image, there is a problem that the image quality is deteriorated as compared with the monitoring image obtained by panning and tilting the monitoring camera. Therefore, the advantage of using a surveillance camera equipped with a fisheye lens is that, for example, the surveillance camera can be embedded in a ceiling or the like and can be fixedly installed, so that it has a good appearance and requires a mechanically movable part such as a pan head. Therefore, it is limited to the point that the operation reliability is excellent.

  The present invention has been made in consideration of such circumstances, and the purpose thereof is to take advantage of the advantages of an omnidirectional image obtained by using a surveillance camera equipped with a fisheye lens, so that all of a wide range of surveillance target areas can be completely omitted. It is an object of the present invention to provide a monitoring system having a simple configuration that can be monitored and can appropriately obtain a monitoring image of an arbitrary point of interest.

In order to achieve the above-described object, the monitoring system according to the present invention includes a fisheye lens and includes an omnidirectional camera that collectively images the entire monitoring target area at an equal angle,
<a> a recording apparatus that sequentially records an omnidirectional image of a monitoring target area obtained from the omnidirectional camera as time passes;
<b> Designating means for designating a recording time of an omnidirectional image recorded in the recording apparatus and selectively designating a monitoring area to be noted in the omnidirectional image;
<c> Image conversion means for reading out the image at the designated time and monitoring area in the omnidirectional image from the recording apparatus and developing the image in a plan view to display the image.

  That is, the monitoring system according to the present invention records the omnidirectional image obtained through the fisheye lens as it is in the recording device, and designates the recording time and the monitoring area to be noted for the recorded image. A monitoring image developed in a plan view in a designated direction is obtained from the omnidirectional image, thereby obtaining a pan / tilt effect on the monitoring area retroactively in time, in other words, retroactively to the past. In addition, the present invention is characterized in that a monitoring image of an arbitrary point of interest is appropriately obtained while preventing omission of monitoring of the entire monitoring target area.

  Preferably, the designation means designates an azimuth for viewing the notable monitoring area from an installation position of the omnidirectional camera, and a recording time of an image to be read from the recording device or It is configured to specify a recording time zone. The azimuth designated by the designation means, as described in claim 3, includes the azimuth angle of the monitoring area to be noted from a preset reference azimuth and the central axis of the optical system of the omnidirectional camera. What is necessary is just to give as a depression angle of the monitoring area which should be noted.

  According to the monitoring system having the above-described configuration, the monitoring camera is pan / tilt controlled using the pan / tilt head to obtain a monitoring image of the viewing direction, or a specific direction is selected from the omnidirectional image obtained through the fisheye lens. Unlike obtaining a surveillance image developed in plan view, an omnidirectional image obtained via a fisheye lens is recorded as it is, and then the recording time and azimuth are designated as necessary from the omnidirectional image. Since it is possible to obtain a monitoring image developed in a plan view in the designated direction, it is possible to reliably prevent a leakage of monitoring with respect to the entire monitoring target area.

  In other words, by specifying the recording time and the orientation of the region of interest for all the azimuth images sequentially recorded in the recording device, the monitoring part (viewing azimuth of the monitoring image) by the image can be arbitrarily set retrospectively. Pan / tilt is possible. Therefore, it is possible to effectively monitor the entire monitoring target area without omission without specifying in advance the monitoring part (orientation) to be noted in all the monitoring target areas.

Hereinafter, a monitoring system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a main part of the monitoring system. Reference numeral 1 denotes a monitoring camera provided with a fisheye lens 2. The surveillance camera 1 includes, for example, a CCD as its imaging device, and the fisheye lens 2 includes a viewing angle (view angle) of approximately 180 °. The monitoring camera 1 is fixedly installed on a ceiling surface or the like in a store or a warehouse, for example, and the room (in the store or the warehouse) is set as a monitoring target region, and the monitoring target region obtained through the fisheye lens 2 is An omnidirectional image is captured and input at a predetermined cycle.

  Incidentally, the fisheye lens 2 having a viewing angle of 180 ° conceptually represents an image of the imaging target area A that is reflected at an equal angle over all directions on the hemispherical surface 2a formed by the lens surface as shown in FIG. It has a function of projecting onto the plane 2b passing through the center point of the hemispherical surface 2a, that is, onto the imaging surface of the imaging camera 1. Accordingly, the omnidirectional image obtained through the fisheye lens 2 is obtained by taking an image of the imaging target area A at an equal angle, and the size of the image is reduced as the distance from the lens surface (hemispherical surface) 2a increases. As shown in FIG. 3, the image is distorted in an arc shape. 2 and 3 indicate a rectangular object in the imaging target area A and an image of the object in the omnidirectional image.

  Then, the omnidirectional image A of the monitoring target area captured by the monitoring camera 1 is sequentially recorded in real time in the moving image memory 3 that is the information recording medium, and is appropriately displayed on the monitor display 4. It is like that. Note that the recording of the omnidirectional image in the moving image memory 3 is performed, for example, by assigning time information counted by the clock circuit 5 as the imaging time.

  On the other hand, the monitoring system includes an image cutout unit 7 that selectively reads out a part of the omnidirectional image recorded in the moving image memory 3 based on an instruction from the instruction unit 6, and the image cutout unit 7. And an image developing unit 8 that develops the omnidirectional image selectively cut out in the plan view based on the instruction information from the instruction unit 6. The instructing unit 6 designates a recording time or a recording time zone for specifying a time point to be confirmed (monitored) retrospectively with respect to the omnidirectional image recorded in the moving image memory 3, and the monitoring target The direction of the attention point (position) T from the installation location of the monitoring camera 1 that specifies where the region (position) in the area A is desired to be specified is designated.

  In particular, the designation of the monitoring direction (monitoring direction) is performed by designating coordinates [x, y] of the point of interest T in the omnidirectional image, for example, as shown in FIG. Then, as shown in FIG. 4 (b) in accordance with the designated coordinates [x, y], for example, the azimuth angle θ from the preset reference azimuth X of the point of interest T on the hemispherical surface 2a described above, and the fisheye lens 2 The azimuth of the target point T can be obtained by calculating the depression angle φ in the direction of viewing the target point T from the optical system center O indicated by the coordinates [x0, yo].

  The image cutout unit 7 described above specifies an omnidirectional image at the recording time / recording time zone specified as described above from the omnidirectional images recorded in the moving image memory 3, and further from the omnidirectional image. A partial image having a predetermined size centered on the designated coordinates [x, y] is selectively cut out, and the image data is read from the moving image memory 3. In the image developing unit 8, the moving image memory 3 is used in accordance with the direction information (azimuth angle θ and depression angle φ) obtained as described above, for example, using the technique introduced in the above-mentioned Patent Documents 1 and 2, etc. By developing the image data read out from the plane in a plan view, a monitoring image from which image distortion due to a difference in distance from the installation position of the monitoring camera 1 (fisheye lens 2) is removed is obtained. The monitoring image developed in plan view is displayed on the monitor display 4 described above to be used for image monitoring (monitoring).

  Thus, according to the monitoring system configured as described above, since the omnidirectional image of the monitoring target area A imaged through the fisheye lens 2 is recorded as it is in the moving image memory 3, the trap recording time / recording time zone is set. By simply designating and specifying the attention point T in the monitoring target area A, it is possible to obtain a monitoring image of the attention area in the monitoring target area A by going back in time. In other words, it is possible to execute so-called pan / tilt control at an arbitrary angle for obtaining a monitoring target image retroactively. In addition, since the attention point T can be set for all the regions in the omnidirectional image and the monitoring image at the attention point T can be obtained as appropriate, the entire monitoring target region A can be monitored without omission. Become. In particular, since it is not necessary to designate a specific area in the monitoring target area A as an important monitoring target in advance, for example, it is possible to provide a wide range of versatile responses in image monitoring. .

  The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above. For example, as the moving image memory 3, it is needless to say that a VTR may be used, and a DVD, a hard disk device, a semiconductor memory, or the like can be appropriately employed. For specifying the attention point T for the omnidirectional image, the position coordinates and the like in the monitoring target area A may be directly input from a keyboard or the like, but a mouse or tablet is used for the omnidirectional image displayed on the monitor display 3. In addition, it may be specified interactively using a pointing device such as a joystick.

  Of course, regarding the monitoring image displayed in a plan view, the size of the image area and the size of the display image itself may be appropriately variable. Incidentally, when changing the size of the image area, it is sufficient to change the range of the image area to be cut out with the attention point T as the center. Furthermore, when the omnidirectional image is developed in a plan view, an image interpolation (pixel interpolation) process is appropriately performed on a portion where the image becomes rough, and the position in the monitoring target area A is almost constant. It is preferable to obtain a monitoring image of the image quality. In addition, the present invention can be variously modified and implemented without departing from the scope of the invention.

The principal part schematic block diagram of the monitoring system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the imaging concept of the omnidirectional image through a fisheye lens. The figure which shows the example of the arc-shaped distortion of the image in an omnidirectional image. The figure which shows the attention point T designated with respect to the omnidirectional image, and the relationship of the azimuth | direction of the said attention point from a surveillance camera.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Surveillance camera 2 Fisheye lens 3 Moving image memory 4 Monitor display 5 Clock circuit 6 Instruction part 7 Image extraction part 8 Image expansion | deployment part (planar view expansion | deployment)

Claims (3)

An omnidirectional camera that is equipped with a fisheye lens and captures the entire monitoring target area at the same angle, and
A recording device for sequentially recording an omnidirectional image of the monitoring target area obtained from the omnidirectional camera with time,
Designating means for designating the recording time of the omnidirectional image recorded in the recording apparatus and selectively designating a monitoring area to be noted in the omnidirectional image;
A monitoring system comprising: image conversion means for reading out the image at the designated time and monitoring area in the omnidirectional image from the recording device and developing the image in a plan view.   The designation means designates an azimuth for viewing the remarkable monitoring area from an installation position of the omnidirectional camera, and designates a recording time or a recording time zone of an image to be read from the recording device. Item 2. The monitoring system according to Item 1.   The azimuth designated by the designation means is given as the azimuth angle of the notable monitoring area from a preset reference azimuth and the depression angle of the notable monitoring area from the optical system central axis of the omnidirectional camera. The monitoring system according to claim 2 which is a thing.

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