JP2006099700A - Image monitoring device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image monitoring device capable of surely extracting an intruder in strong light by excluding erroneous information caused by the light, as regards an image monitoring device. <P>SOLUTION: This image monitoring device is provided with: an image input means 12 for acquiring an image; a feature extracting means 15 for extracting edges of the image 15; a background storing means 13 for storing background image edges or a background image; a difference processing means 16 for calculating a variation of edge strength in each pixel by comparing input image edges with the background image edges; a binarization threshold setting means 110 for setting a prescribed binarization threshold in each pixel on the basis of the edge strength of the background image edges; a changed pixel extracting means 17 for extracting changed pixels whose value is equal to or greater than the prescribed binarization threshold by comparing the variance of edge strength in respective pixels with the prescribed binarization threshold in the respective pixels; and a moving body determining means 112 for determining presence of a moving body in a monitoring area on the basis of at least an area formed by the changed pixels. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image monitoring apparatus, and more particularly to an image monitoring apparatus that can eliminate false alarms caused by light and reliably extract an intruder in strong light.

  Conventionally, as an image sensor for the purpose of detecting an intruder, there is one that detects an intruder based on a change from a background image. This image sensor obtains a luminance difference value of each pixel between a background image and an input image, and determines that an intruder exists when a set (change area) of pixels having a large luminance difference value is equal to or larger than a predetermined size. is doing.

  However, the brightness value of the entire image of the image obtained by capturing the monitoring area may change due to a change in the surrounding environment. For example, when the outdoor is monitored by the image sensor, the sunshine changes depending on the time and weather, so the luminance value of the acquired image also changes. Therefore, there is a case where it is erroneously detected as an intruder despite the luminance change due to the environmental change.

  In order to prevent such erroneous detection, conventionally, an image sensor that determines an intruder using an edge image has been proposed. This image sensor detects an edge portion of the image to generate an edge image, obtains a difference value of the edge intensity of each pixel between the reference background edge image and the input edge image, and sums the obtained difference values, An intruder is determined based on the number of pixels whose difference value is greater than or equal to a predetermined value (see Patent Document 1).

JP-A-5-266198

  By the way, when comparing the edge image in which the monitoring area is irradiated with light and the original edge image (in the state where light is not irradiated), the edge intensity at the same edge portion is the edge in the state where light is irradiated. The image is larger. As the edge intensity in the original edge image is larger, the amount of change in edge intensity when light is irradiated is larger.

The background edge image includes various edge portions, each having different edge strength. Therefore, in the conventional image sensor, when a portion with a high edge strength is in the background, the edge strength of the portion changes greatly when irradiated with light, which may be erroneously determined as an intruder. It was.
In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an image sensor that can prevent intruders from being erroneously detected due to light irradiation on a monitoring area.

  An image monitoring apparatus according to the present invention includes an image input unit that acquires an image of a monitoring region, a feature extraction unit that extracts an edge of the image, and a background image edge extracted by the feature extraction unit from a reference background image Or background storage means for storing the background image, and difference processing means for comparing the input image edge extracted by the feature extraction means from the input image to be monitored with the background image edge to obtain the amount of change in edge intensity at each pixel. Binarization threshold value setting means for setting a predetermined binarization threshold value in each pixel based on the edge intensity of the background image edge, and a change amount of the edge intensity in each pixel and a predetermined binarization threshold value in each pixel. A change pixel extraction means for comparing and extracting change pixels that are equal to or greater than the binarization threshold, and a moving body in the monitoring region based on at least the region formed by the change pixel Characterized in that it comprises a movable body determining means for determining existence.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to prevent extraction of a region that has a large edge intensity change amount (edge difference) but is not caused by a moving object, and thus prevents erroneous detection of the moving object due to light irradiation. There is an effect that a moving body can be extracted from strong light.

Hereinafter, a case where an intruder is extracted as a moving body will be described as an example of an image monitoring apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the present invention.
First, each component of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

  The imaging unit 11 represents a camera as an image input unit having a monitoring range as a field of view. There are various types of cameras such as an NTSC type, a high resolution type, a visible light type, and an infrared light type, but the type is not limited in the present invention.

  The image input I / F 12 digitizes the image signal acquired by the imaging unit 11 so that it can be processed by a processor such as a CPU or DSP, and outputs it to a signal processing unit configured by the processor.

  The background image area 13 is an area for storing a background image updated by a background image update means 19 described later.

  The binarization threshold value table area 14 is an area for storing a binarization threshold value calculated by a binarization threshold value calculation unit 110 described later, and stores a binarization threshold value corresponding to each pixel. . The binarization threshold is used by the binarization means 17 to binarize the difference in edge strength described later.

The feature extraction unit 15 extracts the edges of the input image (current image) I (x, y) input from the image input I / F 12 and the background image B (x, y) input from the background image region 13. . The extracted edge has a higher edge strength as a pixel having a larger luminance value difference between surrounding pixels.
Hereinafter, the edge strength obtained for each pixel of the input image is referred to as input image edge strength and is represented by I _E (x, y). Similarly, the background image edge strength is represented by B _E (x, y).
There are various ways to determine the edge strength,
I _E (x, y) = 0.5 * | I (x + 1, y) −I (x−1, y) |
+ 0.5 * | I (x, y + 1) −I (x, y−1) | (1)
B _E (x, y) = 0.5 * | B (x + 1, y) −B (x−1, y) |
+ 0.5 * | B (x, y + 1) -B (x, y-1) | (2)
As an example, a method for obtaining the edge strength is given.

The difference processing means 16 is a difference absolute value between the background image edge strength B _E (x, y) output from the feature extraction means 15 and the input image edge strength I _E (x, y) (a change amount of edge strength or an edge). Difference) | B _E (x, y) −I _E (x, y) |

The binarization unit 17 binarizes the edge difference output from the difference processing unit 16 according to the binarization threshold value stored in the binarization table area 14 with a threshold value determined for each pixel. Specifically, a pixel having an edge difference having a value equal to or higher than the binarization threshold is extracted as a change pixel “1”, and the other pixels are set to “0”.
Although the detailed basis will be described later, the binarization threshold is determined for each pixel in accordance with the background image edge strength, and an edge related to an intruder can be accurately extracted even if a strong edge is included in the background image. become able to.

The label area extraction unit 18 performs noise removal processing, labeling processing, and region extraction processing on the image output from the binarization unit 17.
In an actual image, edges are rarely extracted beautifully, and there are small edges (a set of changed pixels) that deviate from the assumed conditions such as the size of an intruder. Therefore, so-called noise removal processing is performed in which such an edge is excluded from processing. For noise removal, a median filter or a majority filter generally used in image processing may be used.

  In addition, so-called labeling processing is performed in which the change pixels having a fixed positional relationship with each other are determined to be change pixels generated by the same object and are combined into a label area.

Further, a so-called region cutout process is performed in which a label region having a “human” size or aspect ratio determined from the shooting conditions is selected from the label regions collected by the labeling process, and the circumscribed region is cut out.
A circumscribed rectangular region is convenient for processing as a region to be cut out, but it is not always necessary to use it. For example, an ellipse with the major axis direction matched can be used.
The label area extracted by the series of processes described above is passed to the output unit 111.

The background image update means 19 selects an image determined not to have an intruder (no moving object) from among the image signals digitized by the image input I / F 12 and stores the selected image in the storage area 13 as a background image. To do.
The background image is appropriately updated in consideration of sunshine fluctuations and the like. There are update algorithms such as a method that replaces the entire screen at regular intervals and a moving average method that uses multiple past images under the condition that an image when it is determined that there is no intruder is used. Use the one suitable for the conditions.
In the present invention, the central processing is described on the assumption that the data is updated by an appropriate method.

The binarization threshold value calculation means 110 calculates a binarization threshold value for each pixel and stores it in the binarization threshold value table area 14.
The binarization threshold value is changed for each pixel (including each region including a plurality of pixels) according to the background image edge intensity. A high threshold is used for pixels in a region with a high background image edge intensity (complex region as an image), and a low threshold is used for pixels in a region with a low background image edge strength (a simple region as an image).
As described above, the binarization unit 17 binarizes the edge difference output from the difference processing unit 16 in accordance with the binarization threshold value determined for each pixel stored in the binarization table area 14.

Here, the basis for changing the binarization threshold with the background image edge strength will be described.
In the region where the background image edge intensity is low, if there is no intruder, the edge difference is unlikely to appear even if light is irradiated. On the other hand, in a region where the background image edge intensity is high, an edge difference is likely to appear when light is irradiated even when there is no intruder.
This is because if the background image edge intensity at a certain pixel is E, the edge intensity (that is, the input image edge intensity) at that pixel when light is irradiated is approximately k * E (k is the intensity of the irradiated light). Therefore, the edge difference is (k−1) * E, and when the original background image edge intensity E is larger, the edge difference is obtained when light is irradiated. Because it will also be larger.

Therefore, in the region where the background image edge intensity is low, if there is even a slight change in the edge (if there is an edge difference), there is a high possibility that the change in the edge is not caused by light irradiation but by an intruder.
On the other hand, in the region where the background image edge intensity is high, an edge difference is likely to appear when light is irradiated, so if the binarization threshold is set low, there is a high possibility that the irradiated light is erroneously detected as an intruder. Therefore, it is not desirable to use the same (lower) threshold value as that of the region where the background image edge intensity is low.

Therefore, in regions where the background image edge strength is low, we want to detect intruders sensitively to edge changes, so the binarization threshold is lowered, and in regions where the background image edge strength is high, it is insensitive to edge changes. Since an intruder is desired to be detected, the binarization threshold is increased.
However, it is necessary to set the binarization threshold to a value that can sufficiently distinguish the edge by the background image and the edge by the intruder.

FIG. 2 is a graph showing an example of the relationship between the background image edge strength and the binarization threshold value of the edge difference in the present invention.
As in the example shown in the figure, based on the above-described basis, the present invention defines the binarization threshold as a function of the background image edge strength.

In the figure, as an example of the graph of this function, an increasing function in which the binarization threshold increases stepwise with respect to the background image edge strength is shown as an example, but this function is an increasing trend. Anything is acceptable.
For example, it is conceivable to employ a linear function with a positive slope in which the graph is a straight line, a monotonically increasing function in which the graph is a curve, or the like.

  As described above, the binarization threshold value calculation unit 110 specifies the binarization threshold value by referring to the above-described increase function or the like from the edge strength (background image edge strength) of each pixel in the background image. Then, the binarization threshold value is set corresponding to the pixel and stored in the binarization threshold value table area 14.

  The output unit 111 passes the label region cut out by the label region extraction unit 18 to the intrusion determination unit 112 as an output of the present invention.

  The intrusion determination unit 112 uses the label area information output from the output unit 111 to determine whether the cut out area is an intruder to be detected based on the size and shape. For the determination, it is preferable to use additional information such as luminance information of the label area in combination.

Since the background image is not always updated for each frame of the input image, the background image update means 19 outputs the image to the feature extraction means 15 when the background image is updated, and the feature extraction means The background image edge intensity generated from the background image by 15 may be stored in the background image area 13.
In this case, the difference processing means 16 uses the background image edge intensity B _E (x, y) output from the background image area 13 and the input image edge intensity I _E (x, y) output from the feature extraction means 15. The absolute difference value (edge intensity change amount or edge difference) | B _E (x, y) −I _E (x, y) | is obtained.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of the present invention.
The operation of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

First, an image is acquired from the imaging unit 11 that captures the monitoring range (S31).
In this step, the current image used for the processing described below is acquired, and if it is determined that there is no person, a background image is acquired.
FIGS. 4A and 4B are diagrams illustrating examples of the background image and the input image obtained in S31, respectively.
In FIG.4 (b), the light hits from diagonally upper right and the intruder 41 exists in the area | region illuminated brightly.

Next, the feature extraction means 15 extracts the edge strength of the input image obtained in S31 (S32).
FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a result of extracting the edge strength from the input image of FIG.
As shown in the figure, the background and the edge of the intruder 41 are extracted, but the outline of the irradiated light (see FIG. 4B) is not extracted.
Since the contour of the light region is gradation, it is known from experiments that the input image edge strength is not strong.

Next, the edge extraction of the background image is extracted by the feature extraction means 15 (S33).
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a result of extracting the edge strength from the background image of FIG.
Note that this step need not be executed every time, and may be executed and stored only when a background image is acquired in step S31 as determined that there is no person.

Next, the difference processing means 16 calculates the difference between the input image edge strength obtained in S32 and the background image edge strength obtained in S33 for each pixel to obtain a change amount (edge difference) of the edge strength (S34). ).
FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a difference result (edge difference) between the background image edge strength (see FIG. 6) and the input image edge strength (see FIG. 5) regarding the above example.
In the figure, in addition to the edge of the intruder 41, the edge of the background image of the region irradiated with light appears.
This is because, in the region irradiated with light, the edge difference occurs because the input image edge intensity is stronger than the background image edge intensity.

Next, the binarization means 17 reads the binarization threshold value of each pixel stored in the binarization threshold value table area 14 (S35).
As described above, this binarization threshold is a value obtained by a function of the background image edge intensity obtained in S33 (see FIG. 2).

  Next, the binarization means 17 binarizes the difference result (edge difference) obtained in S34 according to the binarization threshold read in S35 (S36). Specifically, a pixel having an edge difference having a value equal to or higher than the binarization threshold is extracted as a change pixel “1”, and the other pixels are set to “0”. Binarization is performed for each pixel.

As described above, when binarizing the edge difference, a function that increases the binarization threshold for high background image edge strength and lowers for low background image edge strength (see FIG. 2). Is adopted in the binarization threshold value calculation means 110.
Therefore, the edge difference pixels having a high background image edge strength are binarized with a high threshold value, and therefore an edge difference of a certain size is easily assigned to “0” by the binarization process.
However, the threshold value is set to such an extent that the pixel of the (outline) portion of the intruder is assigned to “1”.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a result of binarizing the edge difference (see FIG. 7) obtained from the background image edge strength (see FIG. 6) and the input image edge strength (see FIG. 5) in the above example. .
As shown in FIG. 7, the edge difference is a combination of the edge of the intruder 41 and the edge of the background image of the area irradiated with light. The edge of the image is assigned to “0”, and only the edge of the intruder 41 is accurately extracted as “1” as shown in FIG.

  Next, the label area extracting unit 18 extracts the label area by executing the above-described noise removal process, labeling process, and area cutout process (S37), and passes them to the output unit 111.

Finally, the intrusion determination unit 112 receives a label area that is an area formed by the change pixel “1” from the output unit 111, determines whether the label area extracted in S37 is an intruder, If it is determined that the label area is from an intruder, an alarm to that effect is issued (S38).
The final determination as to whether or not it is by an intruder may use not only the information on the label area described above but also additional information such as the luminance information of the position in the input image.
Examples of the additional information include “size and aspect ratio that can be assumed to be a human”, “moving speed realistically considered as a human”, “luminance distribution and texture information”, and the like.

As described above, according to the present invention, the threshold for binarizing the absolute difference value (edge difference) between the background image edge strength and the input image edge strength is calculated as an increasing function of the background image edge strength. The change area is extracted from the edge difference using a different threshold value for each pixel.
Since the edge difference is used, it is possible to eliminate the gradation of the outline such as the irradiated light, and there is an effect that it is possible to avoid false information due to the light.
In addition, if a threshold value based on the function is used, it is possible to prevent extraction of an area that has a large edge strength change amount (edge difference) but is not caused by an intruder. While preventing, there is an effect that only intruders can be extracted from strong light.

It is a block diagram showing the structure of this invention. It is a graph of the function for setting the binarization threshold value of the difference of edge strength. It is a figure which shows the whole process of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a background image and an input image. It is a figure which shows the extraction result of input image edge intensity | strength. It is a figure which shows the extraction result of background image edge intensity | strength. It is a figure which shows the difference result of background image edge strength and input image edge strength. It is a figure which shows the binarization result of the difference of background image edge strength and input image edge strength.

Explanation of symbols

11 Imaging unit 12 Image input I / F
13 background image storage area 14 binarization threshold table area 15 feature extraction means 16 difference processing means 17 binarization means 18 label area extraction means 19 background image update means 110 binarization threshold value calculation means 111 output unit 112 intrusion determination unit

Claims (3)

An image input means for acquiring an image obtained by imaging the monitoring area;
Feature extraction means for extracting edges of the image;
A background storage means for storing a background image edge extracted from the reference background image by the feature extraction means or the background image;
A difference processing means for comparing the input image edge extracted by the feature extraction means from the input image to be monitored with the background image edge to determine the amount of change in edge intensity at each pixel;
Binarization threshold value setting means for setting a predetermined binarization threshold value for each pixel based on the edge intensity of the background image edge;
A change pixel extracting unit that compares the amount of change in the edge intensity in each pixel with the predetermined binarization threshold in each pixel and extracts a change pixel that is equal to or greater than the binarization threshold;
A moving body determining means for determining presence of a moving body in the monitoring region based on at least the region formed by the change pixel;
An image monitoring apparatus comprising:   The binarization threshold value setting means obtains the predetermined binarization threshold value in each pixel based on the edge intensity in each pixel of the background image edge, and corresponds the obtained predetermined binarization threshold value for each pixel. The image monitoring apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image monitoring apparatus is set in such a manner.   The image monitoring apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the binarization threshold value setting unit sets a value obtained as an increase function of an edge intensity of the background image edge as the predetermined binarization threshold value in each pixel.

Images