JP2001309356A - Method and device for browsing remote place situation - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain an image of a prescribed light environment that is not affected by a photographing light environment. SOLUTION: An input terminal 100 photographs and inputs the image of an object, also inputs light environment information at the photographed place and image browsing destination information and transfers these information together with the image to a conversion server 110. The server 110 converts the image into an image being the same as an image photographed in a prescribed light environment by using the light of the prescribed light environment (e.g. daylight) and the received light environment information, makes the converted image correspond to the browsing destination information to be stored in a storing part 111, and transfers a corresponding converted image to a terminal 120 from the part 111 when the browsing terminal 120 makes a browsing request to the server 110.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique for correcting the influence of an image input environment on an image acquired from an input device such as a camera so that the image can be viewed from another environment. For example, the present invention can be applied to inspection work for managing the status of fresh foods and the like and monitoring work at a building site or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional technique will be described with reference to a block diagram shown in FIG. In the inspection business, in order to inspect the degree of maturity and decay of fresh foods and the like, images of fresh foods taken in the warehouse are transferred to the shipper as evidence and the shipping time is determined. Conventional remote location browsing device is an image input client (terminal)
The image input client 200 includes an image input unit 201, an input image storage unit 202, and an image transfer unit 203. An image display client 210 is connected to an image display unit. It comprises a unit 211.

The image input unit 201 captures an image of fresh food stored in a warehouse using an input device such as a camera. Normally, warehouses where fresh foods are stored use illumination light different from daylight and are often dark, and images taken in the warehouse are strongly affected by the environment. Therefore, it is difficult to correctly determine the state of the imaging target. For this reason, the photographing target is moved to a place where daylight often shines for photographing. The captured image is transferred to the input image storage unit 202. In the image transfer unit 203, a warehouse inspector selects an image to be transferred for each shipper from the images stored in the input image storage unit 202, and transfers a necessary image to the shipper. Shipper is the image display unit 211
View the images sent from the warehouse inspection staff at

[0004]

As described above, in the inspection of fresh foods, it is necessary to unify the environment in which captured images are acquired. Therefore, when moving an object to be photographed to a place that is well exposed to daylight. The problem was that it took time and effort. In addition, even when the photographing target is moved and photographed, it is difficult to always obtain an image under a constant environment because it is affected by the weather. The same applies when recording the situation of a building site or the like.

[0005] Furthermore, in the inspection business, there is another problem that, since the cargoes of a plurality of shippers are inspected at the same time, when transferring the images to the shippers, the work of manually distributing the photographed image to each shipper occurs. The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-described problems, and an object of the present invention is to remove the influence of a data acquisition environment in an inspection business or a remote monitoring business, to provide a remote location situation browsing method and It is to provide the device. It is another object of the present invention to provide a remote situation browsing method and apparatus capable of automatically transferring acquired data to a designated destination.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Among the inventions disclosed in this specification, typical ones will be briefly described as follows. The present invention relates to a method for browsing an image acquired by an input device such as a camera from one or a plurality of bases, comprising: a base information input step of inputting image input environment information and viewing base information; An image base information transfer step of transferring information, viewing base information, and an image obtained by an input device such as a camera to an image conversion server; and An illumination light color conversion step of removing an influence and converting an image into a color obtained when photographed in a predetermined environment, and viewing an image (environment conversion image) converted in the predetermined environment by the illumination light color conversion step. And an image display step of playing back and browsing on the terminal.

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a functional mechanism according to an embodiment of the present invention, and the flow of processing corresponding to this apparatus is shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, and an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to these figures. In this example,
An image input client (terminal), which is a method and an apparatus for browsing an image of a situation under one environment in another environment between sites having different environments, and a client (terminal) for photographing the image ) 100, an image conversion server 110 for correcting an image obtained by the image input client 100 and converting the image into a predetermined format, and an image viewing client (terminal) 120 for viewing the image converted on the server 110. Communication line 13
Connected by 0.

In the present invention, the image input client 10
0 and the image browsing client 120 are present at one or more locations, respectively, and are assumed to be connected to the communication line 120. However, FIG. 1 shows a case where both are located at one location for simplicity. The processing will be described. Further, in the following description of the embodiment, the case where the image is a still image will be described, but the image may be a moving image. <Image Input Unit> The image input unit 101 captures a subject under a certain environment, for example, a fresh food or a building site using an input device such as a camera (301 in FIG. 2). In the following, a case where a digital camera is used as the image input unit 101 will be described because it is easy to digitize. However, in the case of a film-based camera, digitalization can be performed using a film scanner or the like after development. The flow after the conversion is the same as that of the digital camera. An input device such as a camera may not necessarily be provided in the image input client 100. For example, a digital camera may be used to capture an image of a subject, and a digital image may be read from the memory of the camera by the image input unit 101. The obtained image is
The data is transferred to the input image storage unit 102. <Input Image Storage Unit> The input image storage unit 102 stores the image captured by the image input unit 101 in the image input client 10.
0 on the input image storage unit 102 (30 in FIG. 2).
2). The pixel value of the image in the input image storage unit 102 is
R (red), G (green), and B (blue) are assumed to be represented by three types of components. If the numerical value represents a color, XYZ tristimulus values of CIE (International Commission on Illumination) Alternatively, a uniform color space such as L ^* a ^* b ^* , L ^* u ^* v ^* may be used. <Base Information Input Unit> The base information input unit 103 inputs image input environment information and viewing base information (see 30 in FIG. 2).
3-304). The image input environment information refers to the image input unit 10
1 is the color and brightness of illumination light (including natural light illumination) when the digital image obtained in Step 1 is captured. Here, the case of expressing the combination of R, G, and B will be described. XYZ tristimulus values,
Yxy values obtained from XYZ tristimulus values, L ^* a ^* b ^* and L ^* u ^* v ^* , which are uniform color spaces, may be used. These data can be input by inputting data obtained by measuring the shooting light environment in advance using a colorimetric device, or by shooting a specified color chart with the shooting object at the time of shooting the image, and There is a method of obtaining the color of the illumination light based on the color of the area of the color chart portion. In this case,
Using a white color chart, the average of the white areas in the image is determined as the color of the illumination light. The color chart may be gray or the like. FIG. 4 shows the colors of the illumination light in each warehouse as R, G,
FIG. 9B shows a state in which the combination is expressed as a combination of B and managed as an environment table. In FIG. 4, the image input environment information of the image acquisition environment for each warehouse is represented as a table with numbers assigned as environment identifiers for distinguishing each, but even in the same warehouse, the color and brightness may vary depending on the location. If they differ, the data of the illumination light may be managed for each shooting location.

The browsing base information is information for identifying a client who browses an image, for example, a shipper (generally, simply referred to as a user). As shown in FIG. When the information is managed as a browsing terminal table with “” appended, browsing base information is input by specifying an identifier. FIG. 5 shows a state in which the e-mail address of the browsing terminal is managed in correspondence with the shipper name of each image browsing client 120. Information may be managed.

As a method of inputting the image input environment information and the viewing base information (collectively referred to as base information), predetermined information may be directly input from a keyboard, or a predetermined environment table, The browsing terminal table may be displayed on the screen, and the corresponding information may be designated using a pointing device such as a mouse.
Further, an identifier representing the relevant information may be input using a keyboard, or may be input using a barcode. In the case of inputting with a barcode, the image input environment information and the viewing base information are tabulated in advance in the format shown in FIG. 4 or FIG. 5, a code corresponding to each data is assigned, and the data is converted into a barcode. <Image base information transfer unit> The image base information transfer unit 104 converts the input image obtained from the image input unit 101, the image input environment information obtained from the base information input unit 103, and the viewing base information into two. The data is transferred to the server 110 (305 in FIG. 2).

[0011] Transfer methods include electronic mail transfer and file transfer protocol (ftp: File Trans).
For example, any method may be used, such as transfer by file transfer, or transfer by file copy to a server connected on a network. <Image base information storage unit> The image base information storage unit 111 receives the image and the base information (image input environment information and viewing base information) transferred from the image base information transfer unit 104 in the image input client 100, and performs image conversion. It is stored in the image base information storage unit 111 of the server 110 (401 to 402 in FIG. 3). Image base information storage unit 111
Then, the image and the base information are stored in association with each other. <Illumination light color conversion unit> The illumination light color conversion unit 112 applies a color under a predetermined environment to the image stored in the image base information storage unit 111 based on the image input environment information of the base information. The color conversion of the illumination light of the image is performed so that

An example of a color conversion method of the illumination light in the illumination light color converter 112 will be described below. Each pixel value of the image is represented by (R
_{i, j, G i, j} , B i, j), the color of the illumination light in the image input environment information _{(R L, G L, B} L), the color of illumination light under a predetermined environment (R _W , G _W , B _W ). The predetermined environment, for example, Toka is the color of the daylight, Toka is the color of the illumination light image viewing environment, or the like illuminant D ₆₅ of the color to be used as a standard when observing the color. Where i, j
Is an identifier representing the position of a pixel in the image. The pixel values (R _{i, j} ′, G _{i, j} ′, B _{i, j} ′) of the illumination light after color conversion are expressed as follows.

R _{i, j} ′ = R _W · (R _{i, j} / _{L L} ) G _{i, j} ′ = G _W · (G _{i, j} / G _L ) (1) B _{i, j} ′ = B _W · (B _{i, j} / B _L ) In the above description, (R, G, B) is used as a color expression method when performing color conversion of illumination light. For example, XYZ tristimulus values of CIE, L ^* a ^* b ^* , L ^* u ^* v ^*, etc. which are CIE uniform color spaces may be used. <Image Format Conversion Unit> The image format conversion unit 113 is suitable for browsing the image (environment conversion image) after the illumination light color conversion obtained by the illumination light color conversion unit 112 by reducing the amount of information and compressing. It is converted to a file format (404 in FIG. 3). In other words, GIF (Graphics
Interchange Format) and JPE
G, TIFF (tag-based image fi
le format) that can be viewed with commercially available image display software. The image after the file format conversion is transferred to the image base information storage unit 111. <Image Distributing Unit> The image distributing unit 114 distributes the images stored in the image base information storing unit 111 for each image browsing destination based on the base information and stores the images in the image base information storing unit 111 (see FIG. 3). 405-406). <Image Display Unit> The image display unit 121 browses the images stored in the image base information storage unit 111 via the communication line 130 using an output device such as a monitor. When the image browsing client 120 requests browsing to the image conversion server 110, the image stored in the image base information storage unit 111 is replaced with the image of the image base client 120 distributed by the image distribution unit 114. Make it available for viewing. The browsing of the images can be performed from Internet browser software or commercially available image display software.

Step 405 in FIG. 3 is omitted, and as shown by a broken line, the image transferred and stored from the image input client in step 402 is distributed to each viewing site and stored in the storage unit 111. Alternatively, the color of the illumination light may be converted for the image distributed for each site. Image input client 100, image conversion server 11
0. Each of the image browsing clients 120 can be configured to function mainly with a computer.

For example, FIG.
The CPU 11 executes the program in the memory 12 to function as a whole, stores the image input from the image input unit 101 in the storage unit 102, operates the input unit 13, and operates the When the environment identifier is selected and input and the viewing terminal identifier in the viewing terminal table 15 is selected and input, the image in the storage unit 102 and the illumination in FIG. The optical information (image input environment information), the input viewing terminal identifier, and the corresponding destination in FIG. 5 (viewing base information) are transferred to the image conversion server 110.

When the image conversion server 110 is provided with the environment table 14 shown in FIG. 4, as shown in FIG. 6, the table 14 may store only the correspondence between the warehouse name and its (environment) identifier. . Similarly, table 15
Alternatively, only the identifier (number) and shipper name in FIG. 5 may be used, the destination may be omitted, and the image conversion server 110 may be provided with the viewing terminal table shown in FIG. These tables 14, 15
May be entered by using a keyboard while viewing the printed table.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the image conversion server 110.
The CPU 21 executes the program in the memory 22 to make the whole function.
When the image and the base information are transferred and received from the
And the image in the storage unit 111 is stored in the memory 2
The illumination light color conversion program in 4 is executed to convert the image into an environment conversion image. In this case, for example, when the illumination light information in FIG. 4 is transferred as the image input environment information, the information is used for conversion, and when only the environment identifier is transferred, the corresponding illumination light is read from the environment table 14. Extract information and use it for conversion. The image format conversion is performed by executing the image format conversion program in the memory 25, and the image distribution for each viewing site is performed by executing the image distribution program in the memory 26.

If the image input environment information is input by the same photographing of the color chart as the subject, the environment illumination light calculation program in the memory 27 is executed, and the average of the color chart portion in the image is calculated. Find illumination light. Further, when the transmission / reception unit 23 receives the browsing slip from the browsing client 120, the search response program in the memory 28 is executed, and the storage unit 11 is executed.
1 to retrieve the corresponding browsing base information, extract the environment conversion image, and transfer it to the browsing client 120.

If the storage capacity of the storage unit 111 and the storage capacity of the image memory of the image display unit 121 of the image viewing client 120 are sufficient, the image conversion server 110
The image format conversion need not always be performed. Further, the image distribution for each image browsing client 120 may not necessarily be performed. Further, in the image conversion server 110, the environment conversion image is converted as it is or the image format is converted as needed, and the image is converted by image distribution as needed,
It may be transferred to the corresponding image viewing client 120.

The image input client 100 is not limited to the case where the image input client 100 is fixedly arranged.
An image input may be obtained. Further, the image conversion server 1
10, each image input client 100
Performs illumination light color conversion, that is, generates an environment conversion image,
If necessary, the image format may be converted and transferred to the corresponding image viewing client 120. The image input client 100 may be provided at one location or at one location. In this case, if the image viewing client 120 is also located at one location, its address (viewing base information) is stored in the image input client 120 in advance, and image input and acquisition is performed. It is not necessary to input the browsing base information every time. Image browsing client 120
When the user accesses the image conversion server 110 to acquire and view the environment conversion image for the user (for example, the shipper), the viewing base information input by the image input client 100 may be, for example, only the identifier in FIG. Good.
That is, the user only has to send his or her own identifier from the image viewing client 120 to the image conversion server 110 to obtain the environment conversion image.

As described above, the present invention has been specifically described based on the above-described embodiment. However, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be variously modified without departing from the gist thereof. Of course.

[0022]

The effects obtained by typical ones of the present invention will be briefly described as follows. (1) According to the present invention, the effect of the shooting environment can be automatically removed from an image obtained by an input device such as a camera, so that the image is shot in a constant environment without depending on the shooting location or the weather. It is possible to convert the image into an image, and it is possible to accurately grasp the situation of the shooting target in a remote place. (2) According to the present invention, the server on the network automatically allocates the image transfer destination, so that it is possible to reduce the distribution work at the information source.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing one embodiment of a system to which a remote location situation browsing method of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of a processing flow of an image input client in the remote location situation browsing method of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of the processing flow of an image conversion server in the remote location situation browsing method of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an environment table.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a viewing terminal table.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a functional configuration example of an image input client.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a functional configuration example of an image conversion server.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining a conventional remote location situation browsing method.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Makio Takahashi 1-6-1-6 Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo NTT Communications Corporation (72) Inventor Toshiyuki Iida Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo F-term within NTT Communications Corporation (reference) 5B057 AA02 BA02 CA01 CA08 CA12 CA16 CB01 CB12 CB16 CC01 CE11 CE17 DA16 5C054 AA01 AA05 CA04 CC02 DA09 EA05 EE04 EE08 FB03 FF03 HA01 HA05 5C066 AA01 AA02 AA03 BA20 CA08 EA13 FA02 GA01 GB01 KA12 KE03 KM11

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. An image inputting step of inputting a digital image of a photographed subject to an image input terminal; a base information inputting step of inputting image input environment information at the time of photographing the digital image to the image input terminal; Using the image input environment information, an image obtained when the above image is photographed under a predetermined light environment (referred to as an environment conversion image)
A remote location situation browsing method, comprising: an illumination light color conversion step of converting the environment conversion image into an image conversion terminal; and an image display step of reproducing the environment-converted image at a viewing terminal remote from the image input terminal for browsing. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the base information inputting step is a step of also inputting viewing base information to the image input terminal, and converting the image input environment information, the viewing base information and the image into an image. An image base information transfer step for transferring to the server; and a step of storing the transferred image and information in the image conversion server, wherein the illumination light color conversion step is performed in the image conversion server. Remote location status browsing method. 3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising the step of storing the environment-converted image in a storage unit so that the environment-converted image can be searched for based on the corresponding viewing base information. A method for browsing a remote place situation, comprising an image acquisition step of acquiring an environment conversion image for the image and moving to an image display step. 4. The remote location status browsing method according to claim 2, further comprising a step of transferring the environment conversion image to the viewing terminal of the viewing base information. 5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of converting the environment-converted image into a file format suitable for viewing. 6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the input of the image input environment information is performed in a table of a set of a previously obtained image input and a location and the image input environment information. The illumination light color conversion step extracts the image input environment information from the correspondence table between the image input acquisition location and the image input environment information according to the input environment identifier. A remote location situation browsing method characterized in that image conversion is performed by using the method. 7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the input of the image input environment information includes photographing a color chart simultaneously with an object at the time of acquiring the input of the image, and acquiring the color chart in the input acquired image. A remote location status browsing method characterized in that image input environment information is obtained from an image portion of a color chart. 8. The method according to claim 2, wherein the input of the browsing base information indicates a corresponding set from a browsing terminal table of a set of a user name of the browsing terminal and browsing base information. A remote location status browsing method characterized by inputting a browsing terminal identifier and obtaining browsing base information from the input browsing terminal identifier. 9. An image input unit for inputting a digital image of a subject, a base information input unit for inputting image input environment information indicating a light environment of the subject, and viewing base information indicating a viewing base of the image. And a transfer unit that transfers the image input from the image input unit, the image input environment information, and the viewing base information to an image conversion server. 10. The input terminal according to claim 9, wherein: an environment table storing a set of a shooting location of each subject and an environment identifier for identifying the shooting location; A browsing terminal table that stores a browsing terminal identifier to be identified, wherein the base information input unit is means for selectively inputting an environment identifier from the environment table and a browsing terminal identifier from the browsing terminal table. An input terminal for viewing remote locations. 11. A means for receiving an image, image input environment information and browsing base information transferred from an input terminal for viewing a remote location, and converting the received image into a predetermined image using the received image input environment. An illumination light color conversion unit that converts an image captured in a light environment (hereinafter referred to as an environment conversion image), and a storage unit that stores the received viewing base information corresponding to the environment conversion image as an index. Image conversion server for browsing remote situation. 12. The server according to claim 11, wherein: a means for receiving a browsing request from a browsing terminal for browsing a remote location; and, upon receiving the browsing request, storing the storage unit based on browsing base information corresponding to the browsing terminal. An image conversion server for browsing a remote location, comprising means for searching and transferring a corresponding environment conversion image to the request terminal.