JP2002232747A - Camera tripod head, its control system and its drive control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a camera drive system and a drive control method of camera mounted on a control system of multiple camera images in multiple directions. SOLUTION: In a camera tripod heat composed of a camera setting base to mount a digital camera with a communication means of IEEE1394 specifications, a vertical direction rotating axis to move the digital camera in the up-and-down direction, a horizontal direction moving axis to move the digital camera in the right-and-left direction, a camera tripod head controller to drive-control the vertical direction rotating axis and the horizontal moving axis and a cable connector of the IEEE1394 specifications mounted on the tripod head controller to connect a cable to receive/send a control signal to a control system and the camera tripod head controller, the control signal to drive an electrically operated camera is mixed into image signals of the digital camera, and the tripod head is drive-controlled by communicating the control signal from the control system to the controller via a single cable of the IEEE1394 specifications.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a camera platform, a camera platform control system, and a camera drive control method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a method using a wide-angle lens or a method using a camera platform to move the camera left, right, up and down has been adopted in order to take a picture in a wide field of view using a camera. The camera platform is a platform on which a camera is mounted by being mounted on a tripod, and is used to manually or electrically move the platform to capture a wide field of view. When a wide-angle lens is used, there is a drawback that the photographing range of the lens is limited, and errors in a wide-angle image photographed due to aberration of the lens increase.

There is also a method of driving a motor built in a camera head by a serial signal by a motorized remote control of the camera head. The camera head includes a mounting base for installing the camera, a vertical rotation axis and a horizontal rotation axis for rotating the camera in the vertical and horizontal directions, and a camera head base and the camera head in the vertical and horizontal directions. And a controller for driving the
The controller drives the camera platform in the vertical and horizontal directions based on control signals from control means such as a computer system.

In this camera head, a cable for passing a control signal for controlling the camera head between the camera head and a control system for controlling the camera head is required. At least four types of cables are required in addition to the power cable and the camera video signal cable. In particular, when a large number of cameras are used, the number of cables is multiplied by many, and a cable bundle in which a huge number of cables are bundled is connected between the controller and the camera platform.

[0005]

Therefore, development of a system for controlling such multi-directional multi-camera images is desired. An object of the present invention is to solve the problems of the related art, and to provide a camera driving system equipped with a system for controlling multi-directional multi-camera images and a camera driving control method.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a camera mounting base on which a digital camera having communication means of the IEEE 1394 standard is mounted, a vertical rotation axis for moving the digital camera up and down, A camera head controller for performing drive control of a horizontal movement axis for moving a camera in the left-right direction, the vertical rotation axis, and the horizontal rotation axis, a control system provided in the camera head controller, and the camera head controller A camera head comprising an IEEE 1394 standard cable connector for connecting a cable for receiving and transmitting a control signal to the camera, wherein a control signal for driving an electric camera is mixed with a video signal of the digital camera, A control signal from the control system to the controller. And controlling driving by communicating via the IEEE1394 standard cable (claim 1). With this configuration, it is possible to connect a control system for transmitting a drive control signal of one camera and a controller in the camera head with one cable, and the camera head has a simple configuration. And the drawback that conventionally required a large number of cables is eliminated.

Further, the camera head of the present invention transmits the control signal to an IEEE 1394 UnitDependent.
Command_reg in Directory
It is performed by reading from and writing to a space specified by s_base offset (claim 2). IEEE 1394 Unit Depende
Command_r in nt Directory
The egs_base offset is an effective area for reading and writing the control signal of the present invention.

Further, the camera platform of the present invention is characterized in that the camera platform has ID number information (claim 3). The camera platform can be connected to the control system in serial or parallel, and each camera platform can be independently driven and controlled by one control system.

Further, in another embodiment of the present invention, a camera head of the present invention having such a configuration
A camera drive system is provided, wherein the camera drive system is connected to the control system by a cable. With this configuration, it is possible to connect the camera platform and the control system with a simple connection. Further, there is provided a camera drive system, wherein a plurality of camera heads each having ID number information are connected to a control system by a single cable in a serial or parallel manner (claim). Item 5).
With this configuration, it is possible to independently control a plurality of camera heads with a single control system by simpler connection.

A camera head drive control method according to the present invention, which solves the above-mentioned problems, comprises a digital camera mounted digital camera.
A camera head having a controller having communication means of the IEEE 1394 standard is connected to a camera head which transmits a control signal for driving the digital camera to the controller via the communication means of the IEEE 1394 standard and drives the camera in the vertical and horizontal directions. A driving method, wherein the control signal is mixed with a video signal of the digital camera and transmitted. With this configuration, the digital camera mounted on the camera platform can be controlled with an extremely simple configuration.

Further, according to the present invention, there is provided a camera head drive control method, comprising the steps of: controlling a plurality of camera heads having a controller having communication means of IEEE 1394 standard equipped with a digital camera; A method of driving a camera head that is transmitted to a controller via a standard communication means and is driven in a vertical direction and a horizontal direction, wherein each of the camera heads is assigned a different ID number with meaning, The control signal is transmitted together with the video signal of the digital camera together with the meaningful ID number (claim 7). With this configuration, it is possible to independently control a plurality of digital cameras mounted on the camera platform with a very simple configuration.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing a camera platform of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing a camera platform driving system in which a plurality of camera platforms of the present invention are connected, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a direction. FIG. 4 is a command showing an example of a control command for driving the camera in the driving direction shown in FIG.
6 shows a space address map of IEEE1394, FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an example of a control circuit in the present invention, and FIG. 7 is a circuit diagram showing an input / output interface circuit in FIG. FIG. 7A shows an output interface circuit, and FIG. 7B shows an input interface circuit.

As shown in FIG. 1, the camera platform S of the present invention is used.
Is a camera mounting base 2 on which a digital camera 1 (hereinafter abbreviated as camera 1) having communication means of the IEEE 1394 standard is mounted, a vertical rotation axis 3 for moving the digital camera in the vertical direction, The horizontal movement axis 4 and the vertical rotation axis for moving the camera head, the camera head base 5, the camera head controller 6 for controlling the driving of the horizontal rotation axis 4, and the camera head controller 6 (not shown) It comprises a cable connector 7 of the IEEE 1394 standard for connecting a cable for transmitting and receiving a control signal to and from the control system and the camera head controller 6. The pan head controller 6 is equipped with a pan head control board (described later) for receiving a control signal and controlling the pan head. The reason why a plurality of cable connectors 7 are prepared is to use a plurality of camera heads of the present invention when they are connected and collectively controlled.

A control system S as shown in FIG.
S, for example, the IEEE1394 standard connector 7a of the computer system equipped with the IEEE1394 standard communication means and the cable connector 7 of the present invention are connected to one IE.
It is connected by a cable 8 of the EE1394 standard. Drive control of the vertical rotation axis 3 and the horizontal movement axis 4 is performed by a control command from the computer system CPU, and for example, as shown in FIG. 3, right (r), left (l), upper (u),
The camera 1 is configured to move in the downward (d) direction.

More specifically, when a command such as shown in FIG. 4A is transmitted from a control system SS such as a computer system together with the limit status shown in FIG. Drive control of the vertical rotation axis 3 and the horizontal direction movement axis 4 is performed according to the signal. Here, the limit status refers to a swing mechanism that can only control the up / down (vertical) left / right (horizontal) direction on / off, and limits each movement (limit point)
A mechanism for returning to the status is provided to achieve harmony with the mechanism part, and is a technique well known in the field of robot control and the like.

At this time, according to the present invention, communication between the control system SS and the controller 6 is performed according to the IEEE 1 standard.
The greatest feature is that the 394 standard is used. IEEE
The E1394 standard is a next-generation high-speed SCSI standard that allows a maximum of 63 devices to be daisy-chained or tree-connected, and has a transfer rate of 100 Mbp.
s, 200 Mbps and 400 Mbps are standardized. Also, you can plug and unplug the device during operation,
Power can be supplied via a connection cable. Furthermore, it is expected as a standard for connecting computers and peripheral devices. Already in the digital (video) camera external output terminal industry, ilnk (I
EEE1394 terminal).

The present invention is characterized in that, in the communication means of the IEEE 1394 standard, this control command is transmitted by superimposing it on a video signal. That is, the IEEE 1394 standard (IEEE-based Di
digital CameraSpecificatio
In n), the control commands for the camera platform and the like are standardized on the assumption that the camera and the camera platform are integrated,
By performing this control command by superimposing the video signal, control can be performed even when the camera and the camera platform are separated.

More specifically, as shown in FIG.
The EE1394 addressing is a 64-bit fixed addressing CS defined by IEEE1212.
R (Control and Status Regi)
The control signal according to the present invention is an initial unit space, that is, a space used by the pan head controller (ie, Unit Dependent of IEEE1394).
Command_regs in Directory
_Base offset) (space specified by _base offset).

That is, as shown in FIG. 5, the upper 16 bits of the address space are node_ID, of which the upper 10 bits are bus_ID and the lower 6 bits are physical_ID for identifying a node such as a camera.
It is defined as an ID. The remaining space (bits) of the address space is distributed to the register space and the register address space. Each node such as a camera has only the first 2048 bytes of the initial register space, standard CSR and ROM.
Is used.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5, in the present invention, attention is paid to the fact that the unused 2048 bytes or more of the unused register space of the IEEE 1394 serial bus can be used. A register is designated, the designated maximum 32-bit register is accessed by a control system such as a computer system, and the head status is controlled by reading and writing the register state.

Next, a control board mounted on the camera platform controller 6 will be described with reference to FIGS. A control board mounted on the camera platform controller 6 controls an optical adjustment function such as a zoom function, a focus function, and a filter function of the camera via an IEEE1394 interface bus.

In addition to these functions, a general-purpose input / output port 11 for controlling the operation of the camera platform according to the present invention is provided. The control board mainly includes an I / O port (I / O) for controlling a camera platform, a rewritable gate array device control circuit (FPGA) 12, an IEEE1394 interface (Int) 13, and a power supply control unit (Pw) 14. ing. First, the I / O port I / O is connected to the output interface circuit shown in FIG.
It is connected to the control circuit FPGA through the input interface circuit shown in FIG.

Next, the control board is connected to the IEEE
It is connected to the control system SS via a 1394 interface bus (Int) 13. An I / O port (I / O) is controlled by an IEEE 1394 interface bus (In
t) This is performed by writing to a dedicated register specified in the address space 13. When, for example, (l) is set to a bit of the designated register, the head connected to the output port rotates left. Also, a head status signal (see limit switch status signal, FIG. 4 (b))
And so on, the register bit determined by reading the dedicated register specified via the input port is (l)
As a result, the information that the limit switch state is turned on is taken into a computer system as a control system to perform control.

The control board I / O port (I / O
O) is provided with an 8-bit head operation command and an 8-bit limit status (FIG. 4A and FIG. 4A).
(See (b)), the operation of the camera platform is controlled.

The camera platform S according to the present invention thus configured is constituted by connecting a plurality of camera platforms S, S1, S2,... (Up to eight) as shown in FIG.
It can be connected to the control system SS. At this time,
Each camera head S, S1, S2,... Has a meaning by an ID number, so that a plurality of camera heads S, S1, S2,. Can be controlled.

Accordingly, the present invention also includes a control system and a control method for simultaneously controlling a plurality of camera heads. Further, in FIG. 2, a plurality of camera heads are connected in serial, but they can be connected in parallel via a hub or the like.

[0027]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to connect a control system for transmitting a drive control signal for one camera and a controller in the camera platform with one cable. This allows the camera head to have a simple configuration and eliminates the drawbacks that conventionally required a large number of cables. According to the second aspect of the present invention, the IEEE 1394 Unit Dependent
Command_ in dentDirectory
The "regs_base offset" can use an area effective for reading and writing the control signal of the present invention. According to the third aspect of the present invention, it is possible to connect a plurality of camera heads to the control system in serial or parallel, and to independently drive and control each camera head by one control system.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the camera platform and the control system can be connected by a simple connection. According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, 1
It becomes possible to independently control a plurality of camera pans with one control system. According to the invention of claim 6, it is possible to control the digital camera mounted on the camera platform with an extremely simple configuration. According to the seventh aspect of the invention, it is possible to independently control a plurality of digital cameras mounted on the camera platform with a very simple configuration.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing a camera platform according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing a camera platform drive system in which a plurality of camera platforms according to the present invention are connected.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a driving direction of a camera.

4 is a command showing an example of a control command for driving the camera in the driving direction shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 shows an IEEE 1394 space address map.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an example of a control circuit according to the present invention.

7 is a block diagram showing an input / output interface circuit in FIG. 6, wherein FIG. 7A shows an output interface circuit, and FIG. 7B shows an input interface circuit.

[Explanation of symbols]

 SS: Control system S, S1, S2: Camera head 1: Digital camera 2: Camera mounting base 3: Vertical rotation axis 4: Horizontal rotation axis 5: Camera head base 6: Camera head controller 7: Cable connector (IEEE 1394 standard) 8: Cable (IEEE 1394 standard) 11: General-purpose I / O port for operation control of pan head 12: Gate array device control circuit (FPGA) 13: IEEE 1394 interface (Int) 14: Power supply control unit (Pw)

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[Procedure amendment]

[Submission date] April 16, 2002 (2002.4.1.1)
6)

[Procedure amendment 2]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] Claim 1

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

[Procedure amendment 3]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0006

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a camera mounting base on which a digital camera having communication means of the IEEE 1394 standard is mounted, a vertical rotation axis for moving the digital camera up and down, A camera head controller for performing drive control of a horizontal movement axis for moving a camera in the left-right direction, the vertical rotation axis, and the horizontal rotation axis, a control system provided in the camera head controller, and the camera head controller A camera head composed of an IEEE 1394 standard cable connector for connecting a cable for receiving and transmitting a control signal, wherein a control signal for driving an electric camera head is mixed with a video signal of the digital camera; Control signal from the control system to the controller It characterized by drive control by communicating through one of the IEEE1394 standard cable (claim 1). With this configuration, it is possible to connect a control system for transmitting a drive control signal of one camera and a controller in the camera head with one cable, and the camera head has a simple configuration. And the drawback that conventionally required a large number of cables is eliminated.

[Procedure amendment 4]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0016

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

At this time, according to the present invention, communication between the control system SS and the controller 6 is performed according to the IEEE 1 standard.
The greatest feature is that the 394 standard is used. IEEE
The E1394 standard is a next-generation high-speed serial communication standard. Up to 63 devices can be connected in a daisy chain or a tree, and the transfer speed is 100 Mb.
ps, 200 Mbps and 400 Mbps are standardized. In addition, devices can be connected and disconnected during operation, and power can be supplied by connection cables. Furthermore, it is expected as a standard for connecting computers and peripheral devices. Already in the digital (video) camera external output terminal industry
k (IEEE 1394 terminal).

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A camera installation base on which a digital camera having communication means of IEEE 1394 standard is mounted, a vertical rotation axis for moving the digital camera up and down, a horizontal movement axis for moving the digital camera left and right, and A camera head controller for performing drive control of the vertical rotation axis and the horizontal rotation axis, a control system provided in the camera head controller, and a cable for receiving and transmitting control signals to and from the camera head controller are connected. A camera head comprising an IEEE 1394 standard cable connector, wherein a control signal for driving an electric camera is mixed with a video signal of the digital camera, and a control signal is transmitted from the control system to the controller. Communication via one IEEE 1394 standard cable A camera head characterized in that the drive is controlled by performing the following operations. 2. The control signal is a unit of IEEE1394.
C in the Dependent Directory
2. The camera platform according to claim 1, wherein reading and writing are performed in a space specified by omand_regs_base offset. 3. The camera platform according to claim 1, wherein the camera platform has ID number information. 4. A camera head control system, wherein the camera head according to claim 1 or 2 is connected to a control system by a single cable. 5. A camera head control system, wherein a plurality of camera heads according to claim 3 are connected to a control system by a single cable in a serial or parallel manner. 6. IEEE13 on which a digital camera is mounted
A camera head equipped with a controller having communication means of the 94 standard, a camera head for transmitting a control signal for driving the digital camera to the controller via the communication means of the IEEE 1394 standard and driving the camera in the vertical and horizontal directions The drive control method for a camera platform, wherein the control signal is mixed with a video signal of the digital camera and transmitted. 7. IEEE13 on which a digital camera is mounted
A camera cloud for driving a plurality of camera heads having a controller having communication means of the 94 standard by transmitting a control signal for driving the digital camera to the controller via the communication means of the IEEE 1394 standard and driving the camera in the vertical and horizontal directions A drive control method for a camera, wherein different meaningful ID numbers are given to the respective camera heads, and the control signal is mixed with the image signal of the digital camera together with the meaningful ID information. And a camera head drive control method.