JP2007116309A - Image information reproduction apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To properly control image blur by correctly judging operations in directions of panning and tilting executed by a photographer. <P>SOLUTION: The image information reproduction apparatus is provided with an imaging device for picking up dynamic images; an angular velocity detecting means for detecting an angular velocity of an photographing direction attached on the imaging device; filter means (S2-S4) for executing filter processing in which blur amount of an external periphery for the center portion of each image frame for each image frame is set, in response to the angular velocity detected by the angular velocity detecting means; and an image information reproducing means (S5) for reproducing the image information subjected to the filter processing by the filter means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

The present invention detects image angular velocity in a panning and tilting direction of an imaging device that captures a moving image and suppresses discomfort to a viewer due to abrupt movement in the panning and tilting directions of a reproduced image. The present invention relates to a playback device.

As a conventional image information reproducing device, for example, a degree of change between successive frames of a video file, that is, a degree of change in motion of a video is calculated, and a change amount calculation means using the value as a change amount; The change amount calculated by the calculation means is displayed on the display screen of the display device, and the number of frames to be processed is specified by the specified number, the process is performed according to the processing request, and several frames worth An image editing apparatus having a time adjustment processing execution means for adjusting time is known (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

A moving speed detecting means for detecting a moving speed in the photographing direction by comparing the video signal of the current image with the video signal of the previous screen; and a sudden speed when the moving speed detected by the detecting means is equal to or higher than a certain speed. There is also known an electronic image pickup apparatus and a playback apparatus in which an image processing for obtaining a playback screen without moving an image, that is, a lens focus is adjusted to blur an image (see, for example, Patent Document 2).

Furthermore, it is a simulator in which different right and left deflection glasses are attached and a three-dimensional image is viewed by watching different video images displayed on the rear projection screen. By adding an image pattern in the reverse direction, the sense of speed is increased. A motion perception control device that prevents the occurrence of simulator sickness by adding an image pattern in the same direction is known (for example, see Patent Document 3).
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-98675 (first page, FIG. 1) Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-312074 (first page, FIG. 1) JP-A-9-269723 (first page, FIG. 1, FIG. 4, FIG. 5)

However, in the conventional example described in Patent Document 1 above, if two or more moving objects are moving at different speeds and different vectors in the shooting screen, two reference points (sample points) Since the motion vector is predicted in (area), it is not always the case that the photographer is aware of the pan and tilt that the photographer is performing. However, there is an unsolved problem that it is impossible to cope with the rapid movement of the photographer in the pann and tilt directions.

In addition, in the conventional example described in the above-mentioned Patent Document 2, if two or more moving objects are moving at different speeds and different vectors in the photographing screen, a two-point reference signal (sample point area) ) Is not necessarily recognizing the panning and tilting movements performed by the photographer, and the focus is controlled, so the image is not blurred. There is an unsolved problem that the entire image is uniformly blurred, and a portion with little movement in the screen is blurred and the resolution is lost.

Furthermore, in the conventional example described in the above-mentioned Patent Document 3, since the stimulus that does not move is displayed separately from the motion screen and the sickness is suppressed by displaying the rear projection screen, the stimulus to be displayed is originally an image. There is an unresolved problem that the stimulation is not related, so there is a sense of incongruity, and in the case of video for viewing such as a movie, it is often disturbed.
Therefore, the present invention has been made paying attention to the unsolved problems of the conventional example described above, and appropriately controls the image blur by accurately determining the panning and tilting operations performed by the photographer. An object of the present invention is to provide an image information reproducing apparatus capable of performing the above.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image information reproducing device according to an imaging device that captures a moving image, an angular velocity detection unit that detects an angular velocity in a shooting direction attached to the imaging device, and an angular velocity detected by the angular velocity detection unit. The image processing apparatus includes a filter unit that performs a filter process in which a blurring amount of an outer peripheral part with respect to a center part of each image frame is set, and an image information reproduction unit that reproduces image information filtered by the filter unit.

In the first aspect of the invention, the angular velocity detection means detects the angular velocity in at least one of the shooting direction of the imaging device in the panning direction and the tilt direction, and the blurring amount of the outer peripheral portion with respect to the central portion is determined for each image frame according to the detected angular velocity. By setting and filtering, if the detected angular velocity is large, the blurring amount at the periphery of the image frame at that time will increase, and the movement of the entire image frame will not be abrupt, suppressing viewer's sickness can do.

Further, in the image information reproducing apparatus according to the second invention, in the first invention, the angular velocity detection means detects two gyroscopes that individually detect angular velocities in the Pann direction and the tilt direction, and the two gyroscopes. It has at least a low-pass filter that removes noise components from the angular velocity.
In the second invention, the angular velocities in the panning direction and the tilt direction of the imaging apparatus are detected by two gyros, and noise components are removed from the detected angular velocities by a low-pass filter, so the angular velocities in the panning direction and the tilt direction are accurately detected. can do.

Further, in the image information reproducing apparatus according to the third invention, in the first or second invention, the filtering means is the amount of blurring of the image data at the peripheral portion in the angular velocity generation direction while maintaining the image information at the center portion of the image frame. Is configured to increase as the angular velocity increases.
In the third aspect of the invention, the image information in the central part maintains normal sharpness, and the blurring amount increases as the angular velocity increases with respect to the image information in the peripheral part. Can be visually recognized.

Furthermore, in the image information reproducing apparatus according to the fourth invention, in the first or second invention, the filter means sharpens the image information at the center of the image frame as the angular velocity increases, and generates the angular velocity. The blurring amount of the image data at the peripheral edge in the direction is configured to increase as the angular velocity increases.
In the fourth aspect of the invention, the amount of blurring at the peripheral portion increases with an increase in the angular velocity, and clear image information is obtained at the central portion, so that a clearer reproduced image can be viewed while suppressing sickness.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a schematic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes an imaging device such as a digital video camera for imaging a moving image, and an imaging lens 2 is provided on the front surface of a housing 1. In addition, piezoelectric gyros 3 and 4 serving as angular velocity sensors for individually detecting the angular velocities in the panning direction, that is, the yaw direction and the tilt direction, that is, the pitch direction, of the imaging apparatus 1 are disposed.

As shown in FIG. 2, the block diagram of the imaging apparatus 1 projects a subject image onto an imaging unit 6 composed of a CCD element via an imaging lens 2, and subject image data from the imaging unit 6 is frame by frame. The digital signal is converted by the A / D converter 7 and output to the image processing unit 8. The image processing unit 8 receives the angular velocity detection values in the Pann direction and the tilt direction output from the piezoelectric gyros 3 and 4 and receives the angular velocity ω in the Pann direction and the tilt direction detected by the angular velocity detection unit 9.
p and ωt are input, and the blurring amount of the peripheral portion is set with respect to the central portion of the image information for one frame in accordance with the input angular velocities ωp and ωt, and the filter processing according to the set blurring amount is performed. Thus, the corrected image information is formed and output to the signal processing unit 11. This signal processing unit 11
Then, luminance signal processing and color signal processing are performed on the reproduced image information processed by the image processing unit 8, and the corrected image information processed is output and stored in the image memory 12, and the D / A converter 1.
3 is converted to an analog signal and then output to a display device 14 composed of a liquid crystal display, an organic EL display, or the like.

Here, as shown in FIG. 3, the angular velocity detection unit 9 receives the angular velocity detection values output from the piezoelectric gyros 3 and 4 and removes the influence of disturbance in the vicinity of the stationary state, and thus a low-pass filter 9 a.
And 9b, and A / D converters 9c and 9d for converting the filter output from the low-pass filters 9a and 9b, from which the influence of disturbance has been removed, into digital signals. The detected digital angular velocity values ωp and ωt output from the A / D converters 9 c and 9 d are supplied to the image processing unit 8. The sampling rate of the piezoelectric gyros 3 and 4 is preferably set to be the same as the sampling rate of the image frame or an integral multiple of the sampling rate so as to cause sampling at the same timing.

The image processing unit 8 executes captured image processing shown in FIG. 4 when a shooting switch (not shown) is turned on. In this captured image processing, first, in step S1, it is determined whether or not digital image information for one frame captured by the imaging unit 6 input from the A / D converter 7 is input, and digital for one frame is determined. When the image information is not input, it waits until it is input, and when the image information for one frame is input, the process proceeds to step S2, and the angular velocities ωp and ωt in the Pann direction and the tilt direction are obtained from the angular velocity detector 9. Then, the process proceeds to step S3, where the blurring amounts in the panning direction and the tilt direction are calculated with reference to the blurring amount calculation map shown in FIG. 5 based on the read angular velocities ωp, ωt.

Here, in the blur amount calculation map, as shown in FIG. 5, the angular velocity ωi (i = p, t) is “0”.
"Near value, ie within the dead band width set by ± Δω-When Δω ≤ ωi ≤ + Δω, the blurring amount is set to" 0 "%, and the angular velocity ωi increases in the clockwise and counterclockwise directions beyond the dead band width. Accordingly, the characteristic line is set so that the blur amount increases accordingly, and the dead zone is often provided because the piezoelectric gyros 3 and 4 often output the output signal as an analog voltage value. As shown in FIG. 6, there is a case where it is affected by disturbance even in a stationary state, and a dead zone is provided in the vicinity of the stationary state in order to eliminate the influence of this disturbance.

Next, the process proceeds to step S4, and as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, the blurring amount in the panning direction and the tilt direction gradually becomes a quadratic curve as the blurring amount in the panning direction and the tilt direction goes to the peripheral portion according to the blurring amount set in step S5. The filter characteristics that become larger and the blurring amount set at the outermost periphery are set,
By performing the filtering process with the set filter characteristics of the image information for one frame, as shown in FIG. 9, the corrected image information in which the blur amount increases as going to the peripheral portion is formed, and then the process proceeds to step S5, After the formed corrected image information is output to the signal processing unit 11, step S is performed.
Move to 6.

In this step S6, it is determined whether or not the photographing switch is turned off and the photographing is finished. When the photographing switch is in the on state, it is judged that photographing is continued, and the process returns to the step S1 to photograph. When the switch is in the OFF state, it is determined that the shooting has been completed, and the process is terminated.
In the process of FIG. 4, the processes in steps S2 to S4 correspond to the filter means, and the process and signal processing unit 11 and the display device 14 in step S5 correspond to the image information reproducing means.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described.
Now, it is assumed that the photographing switch of the imaging apparatus 1 is in an off state and photographing is stopped.
In this shooting stop state, the imaging unit 6 does not capture moving image information of the subject image.
When the shooting switch is turned on to shoot a moving image from this shooting stop state, the execution of the captured image processing of FIG. 4 is started.

For this reason, image information for one frame is output from the imaging unit 6, and when this is converted into digital image information by the A / D converter 7 and input to the image processing device 8, the image information for one frame is converted. In addition to reading, the angular velocity detection values ωp and ωt in the pan direction and the tilt direction at that time
Is read (step S2).
Based on the read angular velocity detection values ωp and ωt, the blur amount is calculated with reference to the blur amount calculation map shown in FIG.

At this time, when the imaging device 1 shoots by gazing at a desired position, the imaging device 1 hardly moves in the panning direction and the tilt direction, and the detected angular velocity detection values ωp and ωt are substantially “0”. The fluctuation is within the dead band width.
For this reason, when referring to the blurring amount calculation map of FIG. 5, the blurring amount is set to “0”%, so that the filter amount having a flat characteristic without the blurring amount at the peripheral portion is calculated. Therefore, even if the filter processing is performed with this filter amount, the image information for one frame imaged by the imaging unit 6 is output as corrected image information as it is, and this is the luminance signal processing and color signal processing performed by the signal processing unit. And is stored in the image memory 12 and displayed on the display device 14. For this reason, the reproduced image information displayed on the display device 14 is normal imaging information itself.

However, when a photographer photographs a moving body such as a vehicle or an animal that is moving at a relatively high speed, the imaging apparatus 1 is panned according to the moving speed of the moving body. When the camera is photographed, there is almost no movement in a certain direction and the movement path becomes a complicated movement path. Therefore, the movement of the imaging apparatus 1 repeats clockwise and counterclockwise panning according to the movement path of the animal, When this captured image information is played back, the playback screen moves rapidly, causing viewers to get sick.

However, according to the present invention, when the imaging device 1 moves rapidly in the panning direction and / or the tilt direction and images a subject, the angular velocities of the imaging device 1 in the panning direction and the tilt direction are accurately detected by the piezoelectric gyros 3 and 4. The blur amount is set with reference to the blur amount calculation map based on the detected angular velocities ωp and ωt (step S3), and the filter characteristics shown in FIGS. 7 and 8 are set according to the set blur amount. Then, by filtering the captured image information for one frame with the set filter characteristics, as shown in FIG. 9, the blur amount increases as it goes to the peripheral part in the panning direction and the tilting direction. Image information is formed. The formed corrected image information is stored in the image memory 12, and the display device 14
When the entire screen moves at high speed even if the image at the center moves at a relatively high speed, a reproduced image that is clear at the center and gets blurred toward the periphery can be obtained. In comparison, the occurrence of sickness can be reliably suppressed.

This effect is not limited to shooting moving subjects, but also when shooting a wide range of landscapes by panning or tilting, the central part is clear and blurs as it goes to the peripheral part according to the angular velocity generated at that time. Playback images can be obtained, and viewer's sickness can be suppressed.
As described above, according to the above embodiment, the posture change of the imaging device can be accurately detected by the piezoelectric gyros 3 and 4, and the central portion in the image information for one frame is detected according to the detected angular velocity. Corrected image information with a blurred peripheral edge can be formed, and by reproducing this corrected image information, a clear image at the center can be visually recognized while suppressing viewer's sickness.

In this case, as compared with the case where the movement of the imaging device is detected by a gyro and the image information is directly processed as in the conventional example, it is only necessary to perform the filtering process for blurring the peripheral portion, so the processing time can be shortened. Good corrected image information can be formed.
In the above-described embodiment, the description has been given of the case where the filter processing for blurring the image information of the peripheral portion with the blur amount corresponding to the angular velocity is performed without changing the image information of the central portion, but the present invention is not limited to this. By making the image information clearer in accordance with the detected angular velocity, it is possible to reproduce a good image as a whole even if the peripheral portion is blurred.

In the above-described embodiment, the case where the image information is filtered according to the angular velocity in the imaging apparatus 1 has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this. Is obtained, the angular velocity at that time is added and stored in a non-volatile memory such as a flash memory, the non-volatile memory is set in the image reproducing device, and the image information is filtered based on the angular velocity by the image reproducing device. Then, it may be played back.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the case where the dead zone is provided in the area where the angular velocity is near zero in the blur amount calculation map has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the dead zone can be arbitrarily set. As shown in FIG. 10, the dead zone may be omitted.
Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the case where the angular velocity is detected by the piezoelectric gyro has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and other types of gyros can be applied, and other angular velocity sensors can be applied. Can also be applied.

In the above embodiment, the case where the angular velocities in both the Pann direction and the tilt direction are detected has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and at least one angular velocity in the Pann direction and the tilt direction is detected. Image information may be filtered based on the detected angular velocity.

1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an imaging apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a circuit configuration of the imaging apparatus in FIG. 1. It is a block diagram which shows the specific structure of the angular velocity detection part of FIG. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the captured image processing procedure performed with an image process part. It is a characteristic diagram which shows the blurring amount calculation map showing the relationship between an angular velocity and the blurring amount. It is a characteristic diagram which shows the output characteristic of a gyro. It is a characteristic diagram which shows a pan direction filter characteristic. It is a characteristic diagram which shows a tilt direction filter characteristic. It is explanatory drawing which shows the correction | amendment image information filtered. It is a characteristic diagram which shows the other example of the blurring amount calculation map showing the relationship between an angular velocity and the blurring amount.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Imaging device, 2 ... Imaging lens, 3, 4 ... Piezoelectric gyro, 6 ... Imaging part, 7 ... A / D converter, 8 ... Image processing part, 9 ... Angular velocity detection part, 11 ... Signal processing part, 12 ... Image memory, 13
... D / A converter, 14 ... Display device

Claims (4)

An imaging device that captures a moving image, an angular velocity detection unit that detects an angular velocity in a shooting direction attached to the imaging device, and a blurring of an outer peripheral portion with respect to a central portion of each image frame according to the angular velocity detected by the angular velocity detection unit An image information reproducing apparatus comprising: filter means for performing filter processing with a set amount; and image information reproducing means for reproducing image information filtered by the filter means. The angular velocity detection means includes at least two gyros that individually detect angular velocities in the Pann direction and the tilt direction, and a low-pass filter that removes noise components from the angular velocities detected by the two gyros. The image information reproducing apparatus according to claim 1. 2. The filter unit according to claim 1, wherein the filter means is configured to increase the blurring amount of the image data at the peripheral portion in the angular velocity generation direction as the angular velocity increases while maintaining the image information at the center of the image frame. 2. The image information reproducing apparatus according to 2. The filter means is configured to sharpen the image information at the center of the image frame as the angular velocity increases, and to increase the blurring amount of the image data at the peripheral portion in the angular velocity generation direction as the angular velocity increases. The image information reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the apparatus is an image information reproducing apparatus.

Images