JP2003052037A - Monitor image recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To quickly execute the retrieval work and confirmation work of stored dynamic image data. SOLUTION: A monitor image recorder 1 is equipped with a camera interface 10 connected to an image pickup camera 23 arranged at monitor point, an external input part 9 connected to sensors 211 -21n , an external display interface 6 for outputting a television signal, a time controller 7 for performing the time control of a clock 8, a compression and elongation processor 12 for compressing and coding the image data picked up with an image pickup camera 23, an HDD 4 for storing the compressed image data, an HDD controller 3 for controlling the data input/output to this HDD 4, and a main controller 2. The main controller 2 can retrieve the incidental information such as the image pickup time zone, etc. added to the compressed image data recorded in the HDD 4, output the retrieval results to a monitor room 19 via the external display interface 6, and display it on a monitor television 20.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image recording device for recording moving image data captured by a surveillance camera.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional image monitoring system, for example, an image taken by a monitoring camera arranged at a monitoring point in a building is transmitted to a control device by using a CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) system or the like, and this control is performed. It is stored in a storage device such as an HDD (hard disk device) connected to the device or displayed on a monitor television.
Moreover, since it is a heavy burden for the user to monitor the monitor TV continuously for a long time, the display screen of one monitor TV is divided into a plurality of screens, and a plurality of monitor points are imaged on the display screen. The multi-monitoring system that displays the images of the above, the monitoring system that sequentially displays the images of multiple monitoring points on one monitor TV at different display times, linked with a sensor such as an infrared sensor, and activated by the detection of this sensor Monitoring system.

[0003]

However, in the conventional surveillance system, the content of the image is retained until the image stored in the storage device is displayed on the monitor television for confirmation later. I don't know
There has been a problem that searching for an image including an abnormal event (event) from a huge amount of recorded images requires time and effort.

In view of the above problems, what the present invention intends to solve is to reduce the time and effort required to search for images stored in an image recording device, improve the search speed, and increase the efficiency of monitoring work. The point is to provide an image recording system having a simple configuration.

[0005]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention according to claim 1 includes a storage device for accumulating moving image data for monitoring, and an external display interface for interfacing with an external display device. An image recording control unit that controls the supplementary information characterizing the moving image data to be recorded in the storage device in association with the moving image data; and a list of the supplementary information recorded in the storage device and read out. Image display control means for generating information and outputting it to the external display interface;
The image display control means reads out, from the storage device, a part of the frame of the moving image data corresponding to the incidental information on the basis of a selection request command of the incidental information input from the outside, and displays the frame on the external display interface. Output,
The external display interface is characterized in that the partial frame and the list information are combined and output to the monitor television.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the surveillance image recording apparatus according to the first aspect, the image display control means selects only a part of the frames based on a switching request command input from the outside. The external display interface is controlled so as to selectively output any one of the list information only and combined data obtained by combining the partial frame and the list information.

The invention according to claim 3 is the invention according to claim 1 or 2.
The monitoring image recording device according to claim 1, further comprising an image search means for searching the supplementary information recorded in the storage device, which includes a search keyword inputted from the outside, and the image display control means, The incidental information retrieved by the image retrieval means is output to the external display interface.

The invention according to claim 4 is the monitoring image recording apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the moving image data is linked with a sensor signal input from a monitoring sensor. The image recording control unit includes a sensor interlocking recording unit that controls recording in the storage device, and the image recording control unit associates a factor determined based on the sensor signal with the moving image data as the supplementary information.

[0009]

1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a surveillance image recording apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. This monitoring image recording device 1 is provided with a CCD or C arranged at a monitoring point.
A camera interface 10 connected to an image pickup camera 23 including an image pickup device such as a MOS, and various sensors 21.
An external input unit 9 connected to _{1 to} 21 _n (n: an integer of 1 or more), an external display interface 6 for converting a digital signal into a television signal and outputting the signal, and communication connected to an external communication line or the like. Interface 5 and. As the sensors 21 _{1 to} 21 _n , a heat ray sensor that detects a heat ray emitted by a human body, an animal, or the like, an infrared sensor that emits an infrared beam and detects interruption of the infrared beam, and is attached to the surface of an object such as glass. A vibration detection sensor that detects the vibration waves that are generated and propagated when the surface is destroyed, a vibration sound detection sensor that detects the vibration noise that is generated when an object is destroyed and propagates in the air, and the opening / closing operation of the door Door sensors are examples. In the present embodiment, one camera is connected to the camera interface 10, but the invention is not limited to this, and a plurality of camera may be connected.

Further, the surveillance image recording apparatus 1 compresses and encodes the clock 8 for generating the date and time, the time management section 7 for managing the time of the clock 8, and the image data captured by the imaging camera 23. A compression / expansion processing unit 12, an HDD (hard disk device) 4 for storing compression-encoded image data, and an HDD control unit 3 for controlling data input / output to / from the HDD 4.

The monitoring image recording apparatus 1 further includes
A main control unit 2 having a CPU, an SRAM, a ROM storing a control program, and the like, and an internal bus 11 connecting between the functional blocks 2, 3, 5 to 7, 9, 10, and 12 including the main control unit 2. Is equipped with. The main control unit 2 has a function of operating a control program stored in a built-in ROM to control each functional block and execute data transfer between each functional block.

The camera interface 10 performs analog image processing such as gain adjustment and A / D conversion with a predetermined number of quantization bits on an analog image picked up by the image pickup camera 23 to obtain a moving image of a digital signal. Output image data. The moving image data is stored in the compression / decompression processing unit 12
HDD after being compressed and encoded by the internal bus 11.
It is transmitted to the control unit 3 and stored in the HDD 4. The compression encoding process may use an existing technique. For example, an MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) system and a motion JPEG system based on the JPEG (Joint Photogrphic Experts Group) system can be cited. In the MPEG system and the like, in order to reduce redundancy in the spatial direction, intraframe coding in which only the information in a frame (still image) is compression-coded by using DCT or discrete wavelet transform, and redundancy in the time axis direction are provided. Moving image data is compressed by a combination of motion compensation predictive coding that compresses and encodes a differential signal between the current frame and a predicted frame that is predicted from a temporally adjacent frame in order to reduce the compression rate. It is feasible. On the other hand, in the motion JPEG method and the like, motion compensation predictive coding is not performed, and individual frames are compressed by intraframe coding. For this reason, the motion JPEG method is MPEG
It is disadvantageous in that the compression rate is lower than that of the method, but it is advantageous in that the processing load for thinning out individual frames, reverse playback, and processing / editing is reduced.

The main controller 2 is realized by a control program stored in a ROM, as shown in FIG.
The camera control unit 13, the image recording control unit 14, the sensor interlocking recording unit 15, the image monitoring unit 16, the image display control unit 17, and the image search unit 18 are provided.

The outline of the function of each means 13-18 is as follows. The camera control means 13 has a function of controlling the state of the imaging camera 23 via the camera interface 10, and turns on / off the power of the imaging camera 23.
It is possible to control various imaging conditions such as the focal length of the optical system of the imaging camera 23, AF (automatic focusing), automatic exposure, and imaging direction. Further, the image recording control unit 14 adds, to the compressed image data obtained by compression-encoding the moving image data in the compression / expansion processing unit 12, incidental information (imaging time period, imaging factor, etc.) that characterizes the moving image data ( HDD)
4 has a control function of recording. Further, the sensor interlocking recording means 15 includes the sensors 21 ₁ to 21 arranged at the monitoring points.
21 _n has a control function of recording the compressed image data in the HDD 4 in conjunction with a sensor signal input from the _n ,
It also has a function of determining a factor based on the sensor signal and notifying the image recording control means 14 as the above-mentioned additional information. For example, a factor such as “fire occurrence” is determined for the sensor signal from the fire alarm sensor. The image monitoring unit 16 also has a function of acquiring a differential signal between frames from the compression / expansion processing unit 12 and monitoring the information amount of the differential signal. The image display control means 17 selects the display data to be output to the monitoring room 19 and selects the external display interface 6
And has a function of controlling the OSD (on-screen display) circuit provided in the external display interface 6. Then, the image search means 18 has a function of searching the compressed image data stored in the HDD 4 based on the additional information.

Various operations of the surveillance image recording apparatus 1 having the above configuration will be described in detail below. Sensors 21 _{1 to} 21 _n
The sensor-linked recording operation for recording an image in association with the sensor signal output from the sensor is as follows. As shown in FIG. 3, when the sensor signals # 1 to #n are input to the monitoring image recording apparatus 1 from any of the sensors 21 _{1 to} 21 _n such as a heat ray sensor, the sensor interlocking recording unit 15 causes the external input unit 9 to operate. The camera control means 13 detects the sensor signal input via
To the imaging start command. Next, the camera control means 1
3 drives and controls the image pickup camera 23 via the camera interface 10 to start image pickup. Imaging camera 2
The analog image signal output from 3 is subjected to A / D conversion and the like in the camera interface 10, and then transferred to the compression / expansion processing unit 12 and compression-encoded. The compression-coded image data (hereinafter, referred to as compressed image data) is transferred to the HDD control unit 3 and then stored in the HDD 4 under the control of the HDD control unit 3.

Next, the sensor interlocking recording means 15, when a predetermined time has elapsed or when a specific sensor signal transmitted from any of the sensors 21 _{1 to} 21 _n is detected,
An image capture stop command is issued to the camera control means 13. Next, the camera control means 13 controls the imaging camera 23 via the camera interface 10 to end the imaging. Here, the conditions under which the sensor interlocking recording unit 15 issues the image capturing start command and the image capturing stop command are set in advance according to the type and combination of the sensor signals. Explaining with a specific example, when the door sensor and the heat ray sensor are arranged in an elevator, the door sensor outputs a sensor signal # 1 indicating that the door opening / closing operation is detected, and the heat ray An imaging start command is issued when the sensor outputs the sensor signal # 2 indicating that the heat ray of the human body that has entered the inside of the elevator is output, and then the sensor signal indicating that the door sensor again detects the opening / closing operation of the door. When # 1 is output and the heat ray sensor has stopped outputting the sensor signal # 2 (the human body as the heat ray source has gone out of the elevator), the imaging stop command is issued.

Then, the image recording control means 14 obtains the time information from the time management section 7, and stores the time zone between the time when the recording of the compressed image data is started and the time when the recording is finished in the HDD 4. The HDD control unit 3 is controlled so as to add (associate) and record the stored compressed image data. For example, the compressed image data is from January 1, 2000, 0:10:10 to January 1, 2000, 0: 50: 3.
If the image was taken during the time period of 1 second, "2000/01/2000
Additional information such as "01 00: 10: 10-00: 50: 31" is added to the compressed image data.

Further, the image recording control means 14 obtains the information of the detected sensor signal type and the combination thereof from the sensor interlocking recording means 15, and the image pickup factor determined from the information is compressed in the HDD 4 and stored. The control for adding (associating) to the image data and recording is executed. For example, in the case where the door sensor and the heat ray sensor are arranged in the elevator as described above, the image pickup start instruction and the image pickup end instruction are issued by the sensor signals # 1 and # 2 output from the door sensor and the heat ray sensor. However, the association of the imaging factor can be set for each of the combinations of the sensor signals # 1 and # 2 that define the imaging start command and the imaging end command. As the imaging factors, "a person or an animal has boarded an elevator",
Words and symbols that the user can easily judge, such as "the elevator has moved from the 1st floor to the 5th floor", are preferable. These imaging factors help the user in searching for images.

Next, referring to FIG. 4, the image pickup camera 23
An image interlocking recording operation of monitoring a change in the image captured in (1) and recording an image in association with the change will be described. The image monitoring unit 16 acquires a differential signal (differential frame) between frames whose image capturing times are different from each other from the compression / decompression processing unit 12, and monitors a change in the information amount of the differential signal.
The image monitoring unit 16 issues a recording start command to the HDD control unit 3 to start recording the compressed image data in the HDD 4 when the information amount of the difference signal changes to a predetermined first threshold value or more. . After that, when the information amount of the difference signal changes to less than the second threshold value set in advance, the image monitoring unit 16 instructs the HDD control unit 3 to display the HD of the compressed image data.
A recording end command to end recording on D4 is issued.

Further, when the image recording control means 14 is notified by the image monitoring means 16 that the recording start command and the recording end command have been issued, the image recording control means 14 acquires the time from the time management section 7, and the recording start command and the recording end command. Control is performed to add (associate) and record the compressed image data accumulated in the HDD 4 with the time period between and as the additional information. At the same time, the image recording control means 14 controls the HDD control unit 3 so as to add (associate) and record an imaging factor such as “change in monitoring image” to the compressed image data stored in the HDD 4. Although the image monitoring unit 16 detects the change in the captured image by monitoring the information amount of the difference signal, the invention is not limited to this. Foreign objects, human bodies, etc. may be identified and detected.

As described above, in the HDD 4, as shown in the schematic diagram of FIG. 5, the recording start time (t
in each time period between _s) and the recording end time (t _e), indicating the imaging factor "factor 1", "factor 2", "Factor 3", ...
The compressed image data added with is sequentially stored.

The compressed image data thus stored in the HDD 4 can be displayed on the display screen 20a of the monitor television (display device) 20 arranged in the monitoring room 19 shown in FIG. FIG. 6 is a functional block diagram for explaining the image output operation of the surveillance image recording apparatus 1. As shown in the figure, the user operates the input unit 22 to instruct the controller 24 from the monitoring image recording apparatus 1 that additional information (imaging factor, imaging time zone) added to each accumulated compressed image data. ) Is instructed to acquire the list information. Next, when the controller 24 issues a command CTL0 corresponding to the instruction to the monitoring image recording apparatus 1 as shown in FIG. 6, the image display control means 17 causes the command CT via the external input unit 9.
Upon receiving L0, the list information is acquired from the HDD control unit 3, and the acquired list information is output to the external display interface 6. Then, the controller 24 converts the list information into a television signal and outputs it to the controller 24. FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing list information displayed on the display screen 20 a of the monitor television 20. The display screen 20a shows "2000/2/1 13: 01: 12-1" corresponding to the compressed image data.
3:15:12 ”,“ 2000/2/1 14: 12: 05-14: 13: 59 ”, etc., and“ factor 1 ”,“ factor 2 ”, ... Displayed in line units.

Further, in the monitoring room 19, the input section 22 is
A pointing device such as a mouse and key input buttons are provided, and the user operates the input unit 22 to move the cursor 30 to a desired line position in the list information displayed on the display screen 20a. be able to. When the cursor 30 is kept at the line position for a predetermined time, a selection request command indicating that the supplementary information has been selected is issued from the controller 24 to the external input unit 9
Is transmitted to the image display control means 17 via. Next, the image display control means 17 controls the HDD control unit 3 so as to read the first one frame (still image) of the compressed image data corresponding to the additional information. As a result, the compressed image data read from the HDD 4 is transferred to the compression / expansion processing unit 1
The image data of one frame is transferred and decompressed and decoded into one frame of image data. The image display control means 17 outputs the frame to the external display interface 6, and the external display interface 6 uses a built-in OSD (on-screen display) circuit to synthesize the frame with the list information. Is generated and then output to the controller 24. As a result, as shown in the display screen 20aA of FIG. 8, the first one frame of the image corresponding to the line selected by the cursor 30 is displayed as a background image at the same time as the list information. Therefore, the user can confirm the first one frame of the image corresponding to the selected supplementary information only by operating the input unit 22 and moving the cursor 30 to select the supplementary information. The work load can be greatly reduced.

Further, as shown in FIG. 8, the display screen 20a
It is also possible to switch between A, the display screen 20aB that displays only the background image, and the display screen 20aC that displays only the list information. When the user operates the input unit 22 and inputs an instruction to display any of the display screens 20aA to 20aC to the controller 24, the controller 2
Reference numeral 4 outputs a switching request command CTL1 corresponding to the instruction to the monitoring image recording apparatus 1. Upon receiving the switching request command CTL1, the image display control means 17 controls the OSD circuit of the external display interface 6 to display the television signals output to the controller 24 on the display screens 20aA to 20a.
It is possible to switch to a display of any of aC. As a result, the user can select three types of display screens 20aA, 20aB, 20 according to the appearance of the monitor TV.
Since any one of aC can be freely selected, the image search operation and the image confirmation operation can be efficiently performed.

After confirming the frame (still image) selected by the cursor 30 as described above, the user operates the input unit 22 to instruct the controller 24 to confirm the moving image continuously. The controller 24 issues a moving image request command CTL2 corresponding to the instruction to the monitoring image recording device 1. Upon receiving the moving image request command CTL2, the image display control means 17 controls the HDD control unit 3 to read the compressed image data corresponding to the moving image request command CTL2. Next, the compressed image data read from the HDD 4 is transferred to the compression / decompression processing unit 12 and subjected to decompression / decoding, and then output to the external display interface 6 by the image display control means 17. The external display interface 6 converts the input image signal into a television signal and then outputs it to the controller 24. This allows
A moving image selected by the user is displayed on the display screen 20a of the monitor television 20.

It is also possible to search the list information by the image search means 18. As shown in FIG. 6, the user inputs from the input unit 22 to the controller 24,
When a search keyword such as a time zone of capturing a moving image or a factor is input, the controller 24 issues a search command CTL3 to search for a character string including or matching the search keyword. The image search means 18 is the external input unit 9.
When the search command CTL3 is received via the HDD, the HDD control unit 3 is controlled to read the incidental information from the HDD 4 to retrieve the incidental information including the search keyword. Then, the retrieved additional information is notified to the image display control means 17, and the image display control means 17 outputs the additional information to the external display interface 6. As a result, the list information including the retrieved supplementary information is displayed on the monitor TV 20. By providing the image search means 18 having such a search function, the image search operation and the image content confirmation operation can be performed more quickly.

[0027]

As described above, according to the surveillance image recording apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention, the user confirms the list of the incidental information displayed on the external display device and informs the surveillance image recording apparatus. By issuing a desired additional information selection request command, a part of the moving image data frame corresponding to the selected additional information can be displayed on the display device at the same time as the list. Therefore, it is possible to quickly check and search the monitoring images stored in the storage device, and to improve the efficiency of the monitoring work.

According to the second aspect, the user selects one of the list information-only display screen, the frame-only display screen, and the list-information-frame combining screen according to the appearance of the display device. Because you can choose freely,
The monitoring work can be executed more efficiently.

According to the third aspect, the user can quickly retrieve the moving image data accumulated in the storage device and confirm it on the display device.

According to the fourth aspect, since the moving image of the monitoring point can be recorded in association with the sensor signal, the memory capacity of the storage device can be saved. Further, since the factor determined based on the sensor signal is used as the additional information, the user can easily infer the image content from the factor displayed on the display device. Therefore, the burden of monitoring work can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a surveillance image recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing various functions of a main control unit of the surveillance image recording apparatus according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram for explaining a sensor-linked recording operation of the surveillance image recording apparatus according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram for explaining an image-linked recording operation of the surveillance image recording apparatus according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a HDD of the surveillance image recording apparatus according to the present embodiment
It is a schematic diagram which shows the compressed image data recorded in time series.

FIG. 6 is a functional block diagram for explaining an image output operation of the surveillance image recording apparatus according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing an example of list information displayed on a display screen of a monitor television.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing a composite image of list information and a background image displayed on the display screen of the monitor television.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Monitoring Image Recording Device 2 Main Control Section 3 HDD Control Section 6 External Display Interface 7 Time Management Section 9 External Input Section 10 Camera Interface 19 Monitoring Room 20 Monitor Television 21 _{1 to} 21 _n Sensor 23 Imaging Camera 24 Controller

Continued front page    F-term (reference) 5C052 AA01 AC08 EE10                 5C053 FA11 FA23 LA01 LA06 LA14                       LA20                 5C054 AA01 AA05 CA04 CC02 DA06                       EA01 EA07 FA09 FE11 FF03                       GA01 GB02 GD01 HA18                 5C084 AA02 AA07 AA14 BB02 CC01                       CC06 CC17 DD12 EE01 EE02                       EE05 FF03 FF27 GG51 GG54                       GG78

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A storage device for accumulating moving image data for monitoring, an external display interface for interfacing with an external display device, and supplementary information characterizing the moving image data stored in association with the moving image data. Image recording control means for controlling the apparatus to record the image, and image display control means for reading the supplementary information recorded in the storage device to generate list information and outputting the list information to the external display interface. The image display control means reads out a part of the frame of the moving image data corresponding to the additional information from the storage device and outputs it to the external display interface based on a selection request command of the additional information input from the outside. The external display interface synthesizes the partial frame and the list information. And outputs the serial monitor TV monitor image recording apparatus characterized by. 2. The monitoring image recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image display control means, based on a switching request command input from the outside, only the partial frame, only the list information, A surveillance image recording apparatus for controlling the external display interface so as to selectively output any one of combined data obtained by combining the partial frame and the list information. 3. The surveillance image recording apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an image retrieval means for retrieving, from the supplementary information recorded in the storage device, information including a retrieval keyword inputted from the outside. Further, the image display control device outputs the incidental information searched by the image search device to the external display interface. 4. The monitoring image recording device according to claim 1, wherein the moving image data is recorded in the storage device in association with a sensor signal input from a monitoring sensor. A monitoring image recording apparatus, comprising: a sensor interlocking recording unit for controlling as described above, wherein the image recording control unit associates a factor determined based on the sensor signal with the moving image data as the supplementary information.