KR100915406B1 - Camera - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a camera in which only a part of the entire subject to be photographed is enlarged and the remaining part is photographed as the original video image and displayed together. In the camera photographing the subject, only a part of the entire subject is included. By providing a camera including a lens unit for transmitting an enlarged image of the enlarged portion and the image of the remaining portion other than the partial portion together, the user can identify the corresponding region more clearly by enlarging and photographing only the region of interest. By presenting a photographing method, more functional and beneficial photographing can be provided.

Description

Camera {CAMERA}

The present invention relates to a camera, and more particularly, to a camera which enlarges only a part of a whole subject to be photographed and displays the remaining part together with the original video image.

In general, in using a camera, sharpness is obtained by adjusting a lens part according to a distance between a camera and a subject and a condition of a weather. In this case, the lens unit performs a rangefinder measurement function, a focal length adjustment function, an aperture adjustment function, a depth of field adjustment function, and the like.

Here, the rangefinder function measures the distance from the subject to make a clear image, and the split method that focuses when the two bars are in a straight line, and focuses when the image is clear between the outer circle and the small circle. This method uses a macro method, a matte method that does not have a reference point but is considered to be in focus when the entire screen is clear, and the like.

The focal length adjustment function adjusts the distance from the center of the lens to the film coupled charge device (CCD). In this case, the lens can be distinguished according to the focal length. The focal length is 50 (mm), the same standard lens as the human eye, the wide-angle lens having a focal length of less than 50 (mm), and the telephoto distance having a focal length of 50 (mm) or more. Can be divided into lenses.

The aperture control function controls the amount of light, and the smaller the aperture size, the clearer the image.

Depth-of-field adjustment is to adjust the focus range of the subject.

In the photographing of the camera having the lens unit as described above, the rangefinder measurement function, the focal length adjustment function, the aperture adjustment function, and the depth of field range adjustment function by the method of turning or adjusting the adjustment device configured in the lens unit manually or automatically. And so on.

The lens unit may photograph a subject by providing a special photographing function such as zoom-in, sticker photographing, or the like. Here, in the case of full magnification, the user may zoom-in the entire screen to be photographed by using the optical zoom lens of the lens unit.

However, in the conventional camera lens unit, only a part (or any part) of the entire subject to be photographed by the camera is enlarged, and the remaining part is not capable of capturing the original image. Could not. In addition, when a part of the entire subject is enlarged and photographed through the camera using the optical zoom lens of the lens unit, the entire subject to be photographed through the camera may not be seen.

For example, in the case of surveillance cameras installed in public facilities such as banks, the overall image of people entering the public facilities can be photographed, but the zoomed-in camera cannot be enlarged to clearly identify only the face of the person. In other words, it was not possible to enlarge only the face of the person to make it easier to identify the person, and to display and display the entire original image as it is.

For example, in the case of a black box surveillance camera mounted on a vehicle, the overall shape of the surrounding vehicles passing through the vehicle may be photographed, but it may be enlarged so that only the license plate of the surrounding vehicle may be clearly identified. There was no. That is, when attempting to photograph the entire shape of the surrounding vehicle including the license plate of the surrounding vehicle together, only the license plate of the surrounding vehicle could be enlarged and the entire form of the surrounding vehicle could not be taken and displayed together as the original image image.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in an effort to solve the above-described problems, and provides a camera in which only a part of the entire subject to be photographed is enlarged and the remaining part is taken as the original image image and displayed together. do.

In order to solve this problem, according to the present invention, by attaching (or integrally implemented) an auxiliary lens that performs an optical zoom function to a lens unit, only a portion of the entire subject to be photographed has a predetermined ratio through the auxiliary lens. By zooming in, the remaining part is taken as the original image through the lens unit except the auxiliary lens and displayed together, so that only the portion of interest is enlarged by the user without using complicated software (ie algorithm) or circuit. It can be displayed together with the display and escapes from the monotonous image capturing method that enlarges the entire screen.

According to an aspect of the present invention, a camera for photographing a subject, comprising a lens unit for enlarging only a part of the entire subject, and transmitting an image of the enlarged part and an image of the remaining part other than the part. To provide a camera.

The lens unit may be integrally formed at a main lens for transmitting an image of the remaining part other than the partial part, and at a predetermined position of the main lens, and only a part of the entire subject may be enlarged at a predetermined ratio. It includes an auxiliary lens for delivering an image for the portion. Alternatively, the auxiliary lens may be formed in a structure detachable from the main lens, and may be attached to a predetermined position of the main lens or attached to another position of the main lens after being separated from the position.

The auxiliary lens has a focal length longer than the main lens by more than a predetermined length. In addition, the auxiliary lens has a focal length that can enlarge the partial portion by a predetermined ratio.

Alternatively, such a camera may include a film unit for converting an image of the enlarged portion and the remaining portion transmitted from the lens unit into an electrical image signal, and an image signal of the enlarged portion and the remaining portion converted by the film unit according to a control signal. A gain adjusting unit for adjusting a gain, an image processing unit for converting the enlarged portion and the remaining portion of the image signal adjusted by the gain adjusting unit according to a control signal into image data, and an enlarged portion and the remaining portion The display unit may further include a display unit configured to display image data as a view image on a screen, and a control unit to generate a control signal for controlling operations of the gain adjusting unit, the image processing unit, and the display unit.

Here, the image processor processes the image signal of the enlarged part and the remaining part adjusted by the gain adjuster in units of frames according to the control signal of the controller, converts the image signal according to the characteristics of the display unit, and transmits the image signal to the display unit. The image processor may include an image codec that compresses the image data converted in units of frames and stores the image data in a memory or restores the frame image data stored in the memory to original frame image data and transmits the image data to the display unit.

The control unit sets a screen area for displaying the image data of the enlarged portion converted by the image processor on the display unit, and controls the display unit to convert the image of the enlarged portion converted by the image processor to the set screen area. Display the data. The control unit may change the position information of the image data of the enlarged portion displayed on the display unit to display the image data of the enlarged portion converted by the image processor on another area of the display unit.

In another embodiment, the camera further includes a filtering unit for clearing the image data of the remaining portion corresponding to the portion where the image data of the enlarged portion and the image data of the remaining portion overlap with each other.

Alternatively, the camera may include a menu for selecting a document when the image data of the enlarged portion converted by the image processor is a document, and image data of the enlarged portion converted by the image processor by selecting the menu. After converting to a gray scale, the image correction unit for adjusting the brightness and contrast or by adjusting the gamma value to obtain a high-contrast sharp image in the gray scale further.

As described above, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a user can enlarge and photograph only a region of interest without using complicated software (ie, an algorithm) or a circuit, so that the corresponding region can be more clearly identified, and various photographing methods are presented. By doing so, more functional and beneficial photography can be provided.

1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a camera lens unit according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

3 is an exemplary view illustrating an image of an enlarged part and a remaining part on a screen according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art may easily implement the present invention. As those skilled in the art would realize, the described embodiments may be modified in various different ways, all without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention. In the drawings, parts irrelevant to the description are omitted in order to clearly describe the present invention, and like reference numerals designate like parts throughout the specification.

Throughout the specification, when a part is said to "include" a certain component, it means that it can further include other components, without excluding other components unless specifically stated otherwise. In addition, the terms “… unit”, “… unit”, “… module” described in the specification mean a unit that processes at least one function or operation, which may be implemented by hardware or software or a combination of hardware and software. Can be.

Now, a camera according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the camera according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a lens unit 110, a film unit 120, a gain adjusting unit 130, an image processing unit 140, a control unit 150, and a display unit 160. ).

The lens unit 110 performs a distance measuring function, a focal length adjustment function, an aperture adjustment function, a depth of field adjustment function, etc. according to the distance between the camera and the subject, the condition of the weather, the brightness of the illumination, and the like. The image is transmitted to the film unit 120. In this case, the lens unit 110 transmits the remaining portion to the film unit 120 as it is, along with the image of the enlarged portion in which only a part of the entire subject to be photographed is enlarged by the camera.

The film unit 120 converts the image of the subject transmitted from the lens unit 110 into an electrical image signal and outputs the image converted into the electrical signal to the gain adjusting unit 130. At this time, the film unit 120 converts the image of the enlarged portion and the image of the remaining portion transmitted from the lens unit 110 into an electrical image signal and outputs them to the gain adjusting unit 130.

The gain adjusting unit 130 adjusts the gain of the image signal (that is, the image signal of the enlarged portion and the image signal of the remaining portion) output from the film unit 120 according to the control signal applied from the controller 150 to adjust the image processor. Output to 140.

The image processor 140 receives the image signal gain-adjusted by the gain adjuster 130 and according to the control signal applied from the controller 150, image data for displaying the corresponding image signal on the display unit 160 (that is, The image data of the enlarged portion and the image data of the remaining portion) and converts the image data to the display unit 160. In this case, the image processor 140 processes the image signal gain-adjusted by the gain adjuster 130 in units of frames, and converts the processed frame image data according to the characteristics of the size of the display unit 160 and pixels, thereby displaying the display unit 160. To pass). In addition, the image processor 140 includes an image codec, compresses the converted frame image data according to a preset method, and stores the converted frame image data in a memory (not shown in the drawing for convenience of description) or a frame image compressed in the memory. The data is restored to the original frame image data and transferred to the display unit 160. Here, the image codec may be a JPEG codec, an MPEG4 codec, a wavelet codec, or the like.

The controller 150 performs a function of controlling the overall operation of the camera. In this case, the controller 150 sets a screen area for displaying the image data of the enlarged portion on the display unit 160 among the image data processed by the image processor 140 so that the enlarged portion of the enlarged portion may be set to the separately set screen area. It can also display images. In addition, the controller 150 may change the position information (ie, coordinate information) of the image data of the enlarged portion displayed on the display unit 160 to display the image of the enlarged portion in another area of the display unit 160. .

The display unit 160 displays the image data transmitted from the image processor 140 as a view image (that is, an image of an enlarged portion and an image of the remaining portion) according to a control signal applied from the controller 150.

Then, the camera according to the embodiment of the present invention, the image data for display on the display unit 160, the image data of the remaining portion corresponding to the portion where the image data of the enlarged portion and the remaining image data overlap each other clear ( And a filtering unit (not shown in the drawings for convenience of description) to make the image data displayed on the display unit 160 clearer.

In addition, the camera according to an embodiment of the present invention, the image correction unit for correcting the blurring of the subject (that is, the image of the magnified portion and the image of the remaining portion) is blurred on the display unit 160 (description of the description). For convenience, the drawings are not shown). Here, when the image correcting unit acquires an ambiguous image (that is, the image of the enlarged portion and the image of the remaining portion), the image processor 140 increases the contrast effect of the boundary portion in the image acquired to further emphasize the detailed portions. In this case, it may be implemented through high pass filtering, un-sharp masking, high-boost filtering, and the like.

The high-pass filtering removes low-frequency components from the image acquired by the image processor 140 to show even the finest detail. In this case, the mask for high-frequency call filtering has a positive line coefficient at the center and negative at the outer boundary. With the line count of the value, the sum of the corresponding line counts is configured to be '0'.

The unsharp mast subtracts the low pass filtered image from the original image (ie, the image acquired by the image processor 140) to obtain a clear image.

The high frequency assisted filtering improves the brightness of the original image (ie, the image acquired by the image processor 140) and then subtracts the low pass filtered image to obtain a clear image.

In addition, the camera according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure may select a menu when an image (ie, an image of an enlarged portion) acquired by the image processing unit 140 is a document (for example, a character or a symbol). (Not shown in the drawings for convenience of explanation), and after the image processing unit 140 converts the acquired image (ie, the image of the enlarged portion) to gray scale when it is selected as a document by the menu. It further includes an image corrector (not shown in the drawings for convenience of description) to obtain a high-contrast clear image in gray scale by adjusting brightness and contrast or adjusting a gamma value.

2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a camera lens unit according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

As illustrated in FIG. 2, the camera lens unit integrally implements the auxiliary lens 201 that performs the optical zoom function at a predetermined position of the main lens 202. However, the present invention is not limited thereto, and the auxiliary lens 201 may be formed in a detachable structure in which the auxiliary lens 201 is attached or detached at a predetermined position of the main lens 202. In addition, the auxiliary lens 201 having a detachable structure may be attached or attached to a predetermined position of the main lens 202 and then attached or attached to another position of the main lens 202 after being separated at a predetermined position. You have to understand.

The auxiliary lens 201 enlarges only a portion of the entire subject to be photographed by the camera at a predetermined ratio and transmits the image of the enlarged portion to the film unit 120. In this case, the auxiliary lens 201 may use a telephoto lens having a focal length longer than a predetermined distance from the main lens 202. That is, the focal length of the auxiliary lens 201 is a distance from the center of the auxiliary lens 201 to the film portion 120, so that a lens having a focal length that can be enlarged by a ratio set by some portions is used.

The main lens 202 transmits an image of the remaining portion other than the portion enlarged by the auxiliary lens 201 to the film unit 120 of the entire subject to be photographed through the camera.

Hereinafter, the operation of the camera according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail.

First, when a user photographs a subject through a camera, the lens unit 110 measures a rangefinder, a focal length control function, an aperture control function, and a depth of field according to the distance between the camera and the subject, weather conditions, and the brightness of the light. By performing a range adjustment function, only a portion of the entire subject incident to the camera is enlarged, and the image of the remaining subject portion other than the portion is transferred to the film unit 120 together with the image of the enlarged portion.

In this case, the lens unit 110 is partially fixed to a predetermined position of the main lens 202 as shown in FIG. 2 or through an auxiliary lens 201 that is integrally implemented. Only the portion is enlarged at a predetermined ratio, and the image of the enlarged portion is transmitted to the film unit 120. Here, since the auxiliary lens 201 serves as an optical zoom lens having a focal length that can be magnified by a portion of the entire subject, the magnified image is enlarged by a predetermined ratio. It will be delivered to the film portion 120.

At the same time, through the main lens 202 as shown in FIG. 2, the lens unit 110 also displays an image of the remaining portion other than the portion enlarged by the auxiliary lens 201 together with the enlarged image as described above. Transfer to the film unit 120.

For example, in the case of a surveillance camera installed in a public facility such as a bank, only the face part of the person entering the public facility is enlarged, and the image of the original whole part of the person together with the image of the enlarged face part is also a film part ( 120).

For example, in the case of a black box surveillance camera mounted on a vehicle, only the license plate of the surrounding vehicle passing through the vehicle is enlarged, and the image of the enlarged license plate of the vehicle together with the image of the overall shape of the surrounding vehicle is a film part. Forwarded to 120.

Thus, the film unit 120 converts the magnified image and the rest of the image transmitted together from the lens unit 110 into an electric video signal (that is, the video signal of the enlarged portion and the video signal of the remaining portion), and converts the corresponding image. The video signal of the enlarged portion and the video signal of the remaining portion are output to the gain adjusting unit 130. At this time, the controller 150 generates a control signal for controlling the gain of the video signal of the enlarged portion and the video signal of the remaining portion converted by the film unit 120 to convert the generated control signal to the gain adjuster 130. Is authorized.

Accordingly, the gain adjusting unit 130 adjusts the gain of the image signal of the enlarged portion and the image signal of the remaining portion to the image processor 140 according to the control signal applied from the controller 150. Output In this case, the controller 150 generates a control signal for controlling the operation of the image processor 140 and applies the generated control signal to the image processor 140.

Then, the image processor 140 may display image data for displaying the gain-adjusted image signal input from the gain adjuster 130 on the display unit 160 according to the control signal applied from the controller 150 (that is, the image of the enlarged portion). Data and the image data of the remaining part), and the converted image data of the enlarged part and the image data of the remaining part are transferred to the display unit 160.

In this case, the image processor 140 processes the gain-adjusted video signal input from the gain adjuster 130 in units of frames, and displays the processed frame image data (that is, the frame image data of the enlarged portion and the remaining portion). The display unit 160 converts the image to the display unit 160 in accordance with the size, the pixel, and the like. In this case, the controller 150 generates a control signal for controlling the operation of the display unit 160 and applies the generated control signal to the display unit 160.

The video codec included in the image processing unit 140 compresses the enlarged portion and the remaining portion of frame image data according to a predetermined method and stores the compressed frame image data in a memory as described above. Perform the function.

Accordingly, the display unit 160 transmits the image data transmitted from the image processor 140 according to the control signal applied from the controller 150 to the view image as shown in FIG. 3, that is, the image 310 of the enlarged portion and the remaining portion. The image 320 is displayed on the screen.

Subsequently, when outputting the compressed frame image data stored in the memory, the controller 150 generates a control signal for controlling the image codec operation of the image processor 140 and outputs the generated control signal to the image processor 140. Is applied.

Accordingly, the image codec of the image processor 140 reads the compressed frame image data stored in the memory, restores the original frame image data, and transfers the image data to the display unit 160, thereby expanding the view image as shown in FIG. The image 310 of the portion and the image 320 of the remaining portion can be displayed on the screen.

3 is an exemplary view illustrating an image of an enlarged part and a remaining part on a screen according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

In the example shown in FIG. 3, in the case of a surveillance camera for a black box mounted on a vehicle, an image 310 of an enlarged portion in which only the license plate of the surrounding vehicle passing through the vehicle is enlarged and the rest of the overall shape of the surrounding vehicle The image 320 of the portion can be displayed together.

As described above, the embodiment of the present invention may provide the user with a magnified image that is much clearer than the magnified image by the existing digital zoom by utilizing the optical zoom using the auxiliary lens 201.

Meanwhile, the controller 150 may separately set a screen area for displaying the magnified portion of the image data processed by the image processor 140 on the display unit 160. Accordingly, the display unit 160 may display the image data of the enlarged part transferred from the image processor 140 under the control of the controller 150 in the screen area set separately.

In addition, the controller 150 changes location information (ie, coordinate information) of the image data of the enlarged portion displayed on the display unit 160, and enlarges another area of the display unit 160 from the image processor 140. The image data of the portion may be reset to a screen area for displaying on the display unit 160. Accordingly, the display unit 160 may display the image data of the enlarged portion transferred from the image processor 140 in the reset screen area under the control of the controller 150.

On the other hand, the filtering unit further included in the camera according to an embodiment of the present invention, the remaining portion corresponding to the portion where the image data of the enlarged portion and the image data of the remaining portion of the image data for display on the display unit 160 overlap each other By clearing the video data, the video data displayed on the display unit 160 can be made clearer.

On the other hand, the image correction unit which is further included in the camera according to an embodiment of the present invention, corrects that the subject (that is, the image of the enlarged portion and the image of the remaining portion) is blurred on the display unit 160 because it is not in focus In the case where an ambiguous image (that is, an image of an enlarged portion and an image of the remaining portion) is acquired, the image processor 140 increases the contrast effect of the boundary portion in the obtained image to further emphasize the detailed portions. In this case, the image corrector may be implemented through high pass filtering, unsharp masking, high frequency support filtering, or the like.

In addition, when the image acquired by the image processor 140 (that is, the image of the enlarged part) is a document (for example, a character or a symbol), the image processor 140 selects a user menu. After converting the acquired image (that is, the image of the enlarged portion) to the gray scale, the brightness and contrast or the gamma value is adjusted to obtain a high contrast sharp image on the gray scale. Here, the image is converted to gray scale in order to display the document clearly, but it is to be understood that the present invention is not limited to this, but may be converted into a format having a similar sharpness to gray scale.

In the above-described embodiments of the present invention, only a part of the entire subject to be photographed by using a lens in which an auxiliary lens that performs an optical zoom function is integrally or integrally enlarged at a predetermined ratio through the auxiliary lens, The remaining part has been described with respect to the camera to shoot as the original image through the lens unit except the auxiliary lens to be displayed on the display unit together.

However, the embodiment of the present invention is not implemented only through the above-described apparatus and / or method, but through a program for realizing a function corresponding to the configuration of the embodiment of the present invention, a recording medium on which the program is recorded, and the like. This implementation may be easily implemented by those skilled in the art to which the present disclosure pertains based on the description of the above-described embodiments.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and various modifications and improvements of those skilled in the art using the basic concepts of the present invention defined in the following claims are also provided. It belongs to the scope of rights.

Claims (12)

In the camera that photographs the subject, A lens unit which transfers an image of an enlarged portion in which only a portion of the entire subject is enlarged and an image of the remaining portions other than the portion, together; The lens unit, A main lens for transmitting an image for the remaining part other than the part; And a sub-lens detachably formed on the main lens and transmitting an image of an enlarged portion in which only a part of the entire subject is enlarged. delete delete The method of claim 1, The auxiliary lens, And a focal length longer than that of the main lens. delete The method of claim 1, A film unit for converting an image of the enlarged portion and the remaining portion transmitted from the lens unit into an electrical image signal; A gain adjuster for adjusting gains of the image signal of the enlarged part and the remaining part converted by the film part according to a control signal; An image processor for converting the image signal of the enlarged part and the remaining part adjusted by the gain adjuster into image data according to a control signal; A display unit for displaying the enlarged part and the remaining part of the image data converted by the image processor according to a control signal on a screen as a view image, and And a controller configured to generate a control signal for controlling operations of the gain adjusting unit, the image processing unit, and the display unit. The method of claim 6, The image processor, And a video signal of the enlarged part and the remaining part adjusted by the gain adjuster in units of frames according to a control signal of the controller to convert the image signal in accordance with the characteristics of the display part to be transmitted to the display part. The method of claim 7, wherein The image processor, And an image codec for compressing the image data converted in the frame unit and storing the image data in a memory or restoring the frame image data stored in the memory to original frame image data and transmitting the image data to the display unit. The method of claim 6, The control unit, Setting a screen region for displaying the image data of the enlarged portion converted by the image processor on the display unit, and controlling the display unit to display the image data of the enlarged portion converted by the image processor on the set screen region. Featuring camera. The method of claim 6, The control unit, And changing position information of the image data of the magnified portion displayed on the display unit to display the image data of the magnified portion converted by the image processing unit on another area of the display unit. The method of claim 6, And a filtering unit for clearing the image data of the remaining portion corresponding to the portion where the image data of the enlarged portion and the image data of the remaining portion overlapping each other are displayed on the display unit. The method of claim 6, A menu for selecting a corresponding document when the image data of the enlarged portion converted by the image processing unit is a document; and An image correction unit for converting the image data of the enlarged portion converted by the image processing unit to the gray scale by selecting the menu, and then obtaining a high contrast sharp image on the gray scale by adjusting brightness and contrast or adjusting a gamma value The camera further comprises.