JP2003098576A - Pan head device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve still accuracy when presetting reproduction by storing position information of pan/tilt and the picture (registered position picture) of a pertinent position, processing a picture taken in a position moved when presetting reproduction and the registered position picture, detecting shift quantity and controlling the driving of a pan head in a direction where the shift is reduced. SOLUTION: When the instruction of presetting reproduction is inputted by the depression of a presetting key, the pan head 10 is controlled based on registered position information and a camera 40 moves to pan/tilt positions on designation. A picture (reproduced position picture) photographed in the reproduction position is taken in and it is compared with the beforehand registered position picture. The reproduced position picture and the registered position picture are processed by using a picture processing processor 63. Thus, the shift quantity of both pictures is detected. A control signal for correcting the position of the pan head 10 is generated based on shift quantity, and the stop position of the pan head 10 is corrected.

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a pan head device for moving a photographing direction of a camera, and in particular, instantaneously reproduces a preset position (shot position) stored in advance. The present invention relates to a technique for improving the accuracy of rest of the camera platform when reproducing a preset. 2. Description of the Related Art A TV camera is supported by an electric pan / tilt operable pan head, and pan / tilt (camera shooting direction) of the pan head, camera focus and zoom are controlled by a control signal from a pan head controller. There is known a pan head system capable of remotely controlling the head and the like. Also, in such a pan head system, a pan / tilt position, a zoom position, a focus position, and the like are stored in advance, and a camera is automatically moved to the stored pan / tilt position or the like by simply operating a button. Some are equipped with functions. [0003] However, with the recent increase in focal length of a lens mounted on a camera platform, preset reproducibility due to lack of pan / tilt static accuracy has been increasing. Has become a problem. For example, using a zoom lens with a wide-end focal length of 13.2 mm and a maximum of 87 times (the focal length when using a 2x extender at the telephoto end: 2300 mm), the horizontal angle of view is 13 ', and the vertical angle of view is 13'. Becomes 10 '. On the other hand, the static accuracy of a general high-performance head is ± 1 '~ ±
It is about 2 '. Therefore, the image obtained when the preset reproduction is performed may be shifted from the image obtained when the preset registration is performed in the range of the stillness accuracy.
If the preset reproduction is repeatedly performed, as shown in FIG. 8, a maximum displacement of 4 ′ in the horizontal direction may occur between the reproduced images. A shift of 4 'with respect to the screen of the shooting angle of view 13' is unacceptable. [0004] The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and by combining an electric pan head system for controlling the shooting direction of a camera and image processing of a video signal obtained from the camera, the static accuracy at the time of preset reproduction is improved. It is an object of the present invention to provide a pan head device capable of improving the image quality. [0005] In order to achieve the above object, a pan head device according to the present invention converts an optical image into an electric signal and outputs it as a video signal, and a photographing direction of the camera. A camera platform equipped with electric drive means for moving the camera, preset registration instructing means for designating a specific photographing position and instructing to store the photographing position, and the specific photographing position in accordance with a command from the preset instructing means. Position information storage means for storing position information, image storage means for storing an image photographed at the specific photographing position (hereinafter, referred to as “registered position image”), and photographing registered in the position information storage means Preset reproduction instructing means for issuing a command for reproducing a position, and moving the camera to the photographing position based on the position information in accordance with a command from the preset reproduction instructing means After moving to the photographing position in accordance with the instructions of the control means for controlling the camera platform and the preset reproduction instructing means, an image photographed at the position (hereinafter referred to as a "reproduction position image") is taken in. A shift amount detection unit that detects a shift amount between images by image processing from the reproduction position image and the registered position image, and based on the detected shift amount, moves the camera in a direction to reduce the shift. Position error correcting means for controlling the camera platform. According to the present invention, the operator operates the preset registration instruction means to register a desired photographing position.
The information of the designated shooting position is stored in the position information storage unit, and the information of the shot image obtained at the shooting position is stored in the image storage unit. The information on the shooting position includes not only the position information of the camera platform that defines the shooting direction (for example, pan / tilt position information), but also the position information of the lens attached to the camera (for example, zoom and focus). Position information) may be included. After the registration operation, when the operator operates the preset reproduction instructing means, the camera platform is controlled based on the position information stored in the position information storage means, and the designated photographing position is reproduced. Since the position immediately after the reproduction includes an error with respect to the registered position within the range of the accuracy of rest of the camera platform, in the present invention, an image (reproduction position image) photographed at the reproduction position is fetched and stored in the image storage means. Compared with the registered position image. Image processing is performed on the reproduction position image and the registered position image to detect a shift amount between the two, and based on the shift amount, generates a control signal for correcting the position of the camera platform, and corrects the stop position of the camera platform. . As a result, it is possible to improve the stationary accuracy when reproducing the preset. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of a pan head device according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a remote control pan head system to which a pan head device according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.
The remote control head system shown in FIG.
(Hereinafter, simply referred to as a pan head 10), a pan head controller 1
2 and an image processing device 14. The camera platform 10 includes a housing 15 that houses a television camera (hereinafter, simply referred to as a camera), and a camera platform body 16 that rotates the entire housing 15 to pan and tilt the camera inside the housing 15. A transparent protective glass 17 is provided on the front surface of the housing 15, and a camera housed in the housing 15 photographs an object outside the housing 15 via the protective glass 17. The housing 15 is supported by a tilt shaft (not shown) extending from the camera platform body 16, and the tilt shaft is driven to rotate by a tilt motor built in the camera platform body 16. When the tilt motor is driven, the housing 15 rotates through the tilt shaft, and the camera in the housing 15 tilts accordingly. The head body 1
The pan 6 is supported by a pan shaft 18 fixed on a mounting table (not shown), and a pan motor is provided in the pan head main body 16. When the pan motor is driven, the pan head body 1
6 rotates around a pan axis 18 as a rotation axis,
The camera inside pans. The camera platform controller 12 is a device for controlling the camera platform 10 and the camera, and is connected to the camera platform 10 via a cable (connected via a communication line such as a dedicated line or a public line). Is also possible). The pan head controller 12 is provided with various operation members. When an operator operates the operation member, a control signal corresponding to the operation is transmitted from the pan head controller 12 to the pan head 10 and the camera. Thus, pan / tilt of the camera platform 10 and zoom / focus of the camera are controlled. The image processing device 14 is a signal processing device that performs image processing based on a video signal obtained from a camera. The image processing device 14 functions as a control unit of the camera platform 10 together with the camera platform controller 12, and the result of the image processing is used for controlling the camera platform 10 and the like. The image processing device 14 may be configured separately from the camera platform controller 12 or may be configured to be built in the camera platform controller 12. FIG. 2 is a plan view of the camera platform controller 12. As shown in FIG. 1, the pan head controller 12 includes an operation stick (joystick) 20 and a focus knob 2.
2. A zoom knob 23 is provided. When the joystick 20 is operated left and right and back and forth, the camera can be panned and tilted. When the focus knob 22 and the zoom knob 23 are operated to rotate, the focus of the camera can be adjusted.
Zoom adjustments can be made. The pan head controller 12 has a preset function. The memo button 24 and the page button 2 are associated with the preset function.
8. A preset button 30 is provided. The preset function is a function of automatically registering a desired shot determined by a pan / tilt position, a zoom position, and a focus position of the camera in advance by one-touch operation of the preset button 30. The pan head controller 12 shown in FIG. 2 has preset buttons 30 for shot numbers 1 to 10, and has three page buttons 28A to 28C for pages A, B,
By selecting any one of C, three shots can be registered on the same preset button, and a total of 30 shots can be registered. When playing the registered shot, the preset button 30 of the shot number to be played is pressed with the memo button 24 turned off.
As a result, a control signal for instructing the reproduction of the shot of the shot number is transmitted to the camera platform 10, and the shot is reproduced. The operation speed at the time of shot reproduction can be changed by adjusting the speed knob 32. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of the remote control pan head system described above. As shown in FIG. 1, the camera 40 mounted on the camera platform 10 includes a camera body 42 and a lens device 44 mounted on the camera body 42. An image sensor and a required signal processing circuit are mounted on the camera body 42, and an image (moving image) formed on the image sensor via the optical system of the lens device 44 is converted into a video signal (NTSC system in the present embodiment). As a video signal). The lens unit 44 is equipped with optical members such as a focus lens and a zoom lens that can be driven by a motor. The focus and zoom of the camera 40 are adjusted by moving the focus lens and the zoom lens. . The camera platform 10 is provided with a control unit (hereinafter referred to as a “lens / camera control unit”) 51 for controlling the lens device 44 and the camera body 42.
The photographing operation such as start and end of photographing and the operation of the lens device 44 such as focus and zoom in the lens / camera control unit 51 in accordance with a command from the pan head controller 12
Is controlled based on a control signal given by The pan head 10 includes a pan driving unit 52 corresponding to a pan motor and a tilt driving unit 5 corresponding to a tilt motor.
The drive units (52, 53) are controlled by a control signal from the camera platform controller 12. When the pan driving unit 52 and the tilt driving unit 53 operate, the camera 40 turns in the pan direction and the tilt direction,
The shooting direction of the camera 40 moves. The image processing device 14 includes a video decoder 6
1, image memory 62, image processor 63 and CP
U64 and the like. A video signal output from the camera body 42 is input to the image processing device 14, and the video signal is converted into a luminance signal (Y signal) by a video decoder 61.
And a color difference signal. The luminance signal separated here is converted into a digital signal by an A / D converter (not shown) and stored in the image memory 62. The image processor 63 is supplied with a synchronization signal of a video signal from the video decoder 61. Based on the synchronization signal, a command of writing data from the image processor 63 to the image memory 62 at a required timing. Given. The image processor 63 includes an image memory 6
The image data stored in the CPU 2 is read out, image processing is executed, and the result is provided to the CPU 64. Although details of the image processing will be described later, the CPU 64 performs various arithmetic processing based on the result of the image processing by the image processing processor 63, detects a shift amount at the time of reproducing the preset, and corrects the cloud amount to correct the shift amount. A control signal required for controlling the operation of the table 10 is generated. The generated control signal is transmitted from the CPU 64 to the camera platform controller 12, and the camera controller 12 controls the pan / tilt operation of the camera platform 10 according to the received control signal. Next, the operation of the remote control platform system configured as described above will be described. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure for registering a shot in the preset function. When registering a shot, the camera 40 is set to a desired shot by operating the joystick 20, the focus knob 22, and the zoom knob 23 of the camera platform controller 12 (step S110). When the shot is decided, memo button 24
Is pressed to set the registration mode, and the preset button of any one of the plurality of preset buttons 30 provided with shot numbers 1 to 10 is pressed (step S120). As a result, a control signal instructing registration of a shot associated with the shot number is transmitted to the camera platform 10, and information on the pan / tilt position, the zoom position, and the focus position at that time is used as shot data of the shot number as a cloud. At the same time as the image data is stored in the memory (not shown) built in the table 10, the image data of the shot is stored in the image memory 62 (or a non-volatile memory (not shown)) (step S13).
0). When the registration work is completed, the memo button 24 is turned off to cancel the registration mode. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the procedure of reproducing a shot in the preset function. When reproducing the registered shot, the operator confirms that the memo button 24 is turned off, and then presses the preset button 30 of the desired shot number (step S21).
0). In response to this operation, a control signal instructing the reproduction of the shot with the shot number is transmitted to the camera platform 10, the shot data of the shot number is read from the memory of the camera platform 10, and the camera 40 transmits the shot data of the shot data. It is moved to a pan / tilt position, a zoom position and a focus position. The CPU 64 waits for the processing until the shot position (preset position) is instructed (step S220). When the CPU 64 detects that the preset position has been reached, the image at the preset reproduction position is stored in the image memory 62. (Step S230). Images stored in this way (preset images)
Is compared with the image (memory image) stored at the time of preset registration by image processing, and the relative shift amount (Shif
t) is obtained (step S240). FIG. 6 shows a subroutine of the arithmetic processing for obtaining the shift amount, and FIG. 7 shows a conceptual diagram of the processing. In the following description, the shift amount in the pan direction will be described, but the same procedure can be applied to the tilt direction. As shown in FIG. 6, first, as an initial setting, a variable Shift required for calculation is set to 0 (step S310). Next, at the time of preset registration, the image memory 6
2 is compared with the image (preset image) stored in the image memory 62 immediately after execution of the preset reproduction by the image processor 63, and the value of each pixel of the image data (hereinafter, referred to as pixel) ), And the calculation result is stored in association with the variable A (step S312). After that, the image processor 63 shifts the image to the left by one pixel (step S31).
4) The image 'obtained by the pixel shift is compared with the image, the difference between the pixel values of the image data is obtained, and the calculation result is stored in association with the variable A1 (step S316). A obtained in step S314 and step S3
The value A1 obtained in step 16 is compared (step S318), and the process branches according to the comparison result. That is, if A> A1 in step S318, it indicates that the difference in pixel value has been reduced by shifting the image to the left, so that the image is further shifted in the same direction (left). Proceed to step S320. Step S32
At 0, the value of Shift is updated by adding 1 to the value of the variable Shift. Next, an image obtained by shifting the image to the left by the number of pixels indicated by the variable Shift is set as a new image ′, the difference between the image data of the image and the image ′ is obtained, and the calculation result is stored in association with the variable A2. (Step S322). Thereafter, the magnitude relation between A1 and A2 is compared (step S324). In step S324, A1
If the determination of> A2 (YES determination) is obtained, the process proceeds to step S326 in order to further perform the pixel shift in the same direction.
In step S326, 1 is added to the value of the variable Shift and Sh
Update the value of ift. Next, the image obtained by shifting the image to the left by the number of pixels indicated by the variable Shift is newly set as the image ′, and the difference between the image data of the image and the image ′ is obtained.
The calculation result is stored in association with the variable A1 (step S328). After step S328, step S320 is performed.
And the above processing is repeated. If the determination of A1 ≦ A2 is obtained in step S324, it means that the shift amount that minimizes the pixel value difference has been detected, and the process proceeds to step S330, where 1 is subtracted from the value of the variable Shift and the variable Update the value of Shift. Variable Shif obtained in this way
The value of t means the amount of deviation of the image from the image. On the other hand, at step S318, A ≦
If the determination of A1 is obtained, it indicates that the difference between the pixel values is increased by shifting the image to the left, and the process proceeds to step S340 to shift the image in the opposite direction (right). . In step S340, the variable Sh
Update the value of Shift by subtracting 1 from the value of ift. Next, the image obtained by shifting the image to the right by the number of pixels indicated by the variable Shift is defined as a new image ′, the difference between the image data of the image and the image ′ is obtained, and the result of the operation is referred to as a variable
(Step S342). Thereafter, the magnitude relationship between A1 and A2 is compared (step S344). In step S344, A1
If the determination of> A2 (YES determination) is obtained, the process proceeds to step S346 in order to further perform the pixel shift in the same direction.
In step S346, 1 is further subtracted from the value of the variable Shift to update the value of Shift. Then, the image is replaced with the variable Sh
The image obtained by shifting to the right by the number of pixels indicated by ift is set as a new image ', the difference between the image data of the image and the image' is obtained, and the calculation result is stored in association with the variable A1 (step S348). . After step S348, step S340 is executed.
And the above processing is repeated. If the determination of A1 ≦ A2 is obtained in step S344, it means that the shift amount that minimizes the pixel value difference has been detected, and the process proceeds to step S350, where 1 is added to the value of the variable Shift and the variable Update the value of Shift. Variable Shift thus obtained
Means the amount of deviation of the image from the image. When the processing of step S330 or S350 is completed, the process returns to the flowchart shown in FIG. 5 and proceeds to step S250. In step S250, step S240
It is determined whether or not the value of Shift obtained by is smaller than a preset allowable value. The allowable value is 2
A value of about 3 to 3 pixels is preferable. If it is determined in step S250 that the value of Shift exceeds the allowable value (NO determination), the process proceeds to step S260. In step S260, a control signal (hereinafter referred to as a shift correction signal) for operating the camera platform 10 to correct the shift of the image based on the value of Shift is output. That is, the CPU 6
Reference numeral 4 performs an operation of converting the Shift value into an angle of view, generates a shift correction signal for driving the pan driving unit 52 by the obtained angle of view, and outputs the signal to the camera platform controller 12. By driving the camera platform 10 in accordance with the displacement correction signal, the displacement of the image is corrected. After step S269, the process returns to step S230, and the above processing is repeated. When it is determined in step S250 that the value of Shift is below the allowable value (when YES is determined).
Ends the present processing sequence. Thereby, the position accuracy at the time of reproducing the preset falls within the allowable value, and the reproducibility is improved. In the above embodiment, the pan head system equipped with a television camera has been described. However, the scope of the present invention is not limited to this, and the same applies to a digital video camera, a digital still camera with a moving image shooting function, and the like. Applicable to As described above, according to the camera platform apparatus of the present invention, the image at the position (registered position image) is stored together with the position information at the time of preset registration, and the reproduced position is stored at the time of preset reproduction. By processing the captured image (reproduced position image) and the registered position image, the amount of image shift is detected, and the pan head drive is controlled to move the camera in the direction to reduce the shift. In addition, it is possible to improve the stationary accuracy at the time of reproducing the preset.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a remote control pan head system to which a pan head device according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied. FIG. 2 is a plan view of a pan head controller. FIG. Block diagram showing a configuration example of a remote control pan head system according to FIG. 4. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure for registering a shot in a preset function. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a procedure for reproducing a shot in a preset function. FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a subroutine for calculating a shift amount by image processing. FIG. 7 is a conceptual diagram for explaining the contents of the processing shown in FIG. 6; FIG. Explanatory diagram used to explain insufficient stationary accuracy [Description of reference numerals] 10: Head, 12: Head controller, 14: Image processing device, 16: Head body, 1 ... pan axis, 20 ... joystick, 24 ... memo button, 28 ... page button, 3
0: Preset button, 40: Camera, 42: Camera body, 44: Lens device, 51: Lens / camera control unit,
52: Pan drive unit, 53: Tilt drive unit, 62: Image memory, 63: Image processor, 64: CPU

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04N 7/18 H04N 7/18 E

Claims (1)

Claims: 1. A camera for converting an optical image into an electric signal and outputting it as a video signal, a camera platform equipped with an electric driving means for moving the camera in a shooting direction, Preset registration instructing means for giving a command to specify a position and store the shooting position; position information storing means for storing position information relating to the specific shooting position in accordance with a command from the preset instructing means; Image storage means for storing a photographed image (hereinafter, referred to as a “registered position image”); preset reproduction instruction means for issuing a command for reproducing a photographing position registered in the position information storage means; Control means for controlling the camera platform to move the camera to the shooting position based on the position information in accordance with a command of the means; In accordance with a command instruction means after moving to the imaging position, an image (hereinafter taken in the position,
This is called a “reproduction position image”. ), A shift amount detecting means for detecting a shift amount between the images by image processing from the reproduction position image and the registered position image, and the camera in a direction for reducing the shift based on the detected shift amount. And a position error correction means for controlling the head so as to move the head.