JP2009212959A - Video retrieval apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To speedily play back video images subsequent to the image of an arbitrary point of an arbitrary link of a road-river network through simple operations. <P>SOLUTION: A hard disk 46 stores thereon a plurality of motion picture files 18-1 to 18-n of different shooting paths, motion picture index tables 24-1 to 24-n and link index table 26. Each of the motion picture index tables 24-1 to 24-n records thereon a frame number of a corresponding motion picture file and a shooting location measured by a GPS correspondingly. The link index table 26 records thereon motion picture files corresponding to links in a road network database 50, a starting frame and an ending frame. When a road on a map displayed on a video monitor 54 is designated with a mouse 56, a link of the road network is specified. A motion picture file of the specified link is retrieved by the link index table 26, coordinates of a point designated with the mouse 56 are collated with the motion picture index table, and a frame number is retrieved. A motion picture is played back from the retrieved frame number. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a video search apparatus capable of searching for a video of a traffic route such as a road or a river where a merge branch can occur with a simple operation.

As a video search system for such a purpose, for example, there is a “current video search device for roads and rivers” described in Patent Document 1. Patent Document 1 uses an up / down or right bank / left bank image obtained by sequentially shooting while traveling and navigating roads and rivers, using numerical values such as an arbitrary kilometer from the road / river base point, or In addition, a video search system that displays a video of a corresponding point by a name such as a road / river point name is described.
Japanese Patent No. 3099103

  Conventional video search systems are mainly used for road and river maintenance management. For maintenance management, the road start point (base point), end point, branch point, junction point, and their connection are databased as a road network, and the video search system is linked to such a road / river database. It must be easy to use.

  An object of the present invention is to present an easy-to-use video search apparatus in cooperation with a road and river network.

  The video search device according to the present invention includes a plurality of video files, a plurality of video index tables attached to each of the plurality of video files, and storing correspondence between frames of corresponding video files and shooting positions, and a road network Or, for a network represented by links and nodes, such as a river network, a link index table for storing a moving image file corresponding to each link and its start frame and end frame, and a point designating means for designating a point on a map A link search unit that searches for a link corresponding to the point specified by the point specifying unit, a video file corresponding to the link searched by the link search unit with reference to the link index table, and a start frame thereof And a movie file search means for searching for the end frame and a motion file attached to the movie file searched by the movie file search means. Referring to the index table, a video frame search unit that searches for a video frame corresponding to the point specified by the point specifying unit and a video file searched by the video file search unit are searched by the video frame search unit. And a moving image file reproducing means for reproducing the video frame and the subsequent video frames.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to quickly reproduce and display the video of the link after the designated point with a simple operation.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  Before describing this embodiment, a description example of a road network database will be described. FIG. 5 shows a schematic diagram of a road network in an expressway interchange. FIG. 6 shows a description example of a database expressing the road network shown in FIG. The road network includes nodes N (1 to N16) indicating start points (base points), end points, branch points or junctions of roads, and links L (L1 to L16) connecting two adjacent nodes. The coordinates in the ground coordinate system of each node N (1 to N16) are described in another beta base. The link shape or coordinates can be separately described as an intermediate point or as a function indicating the link shape.

  FIG. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of a video data collection apparatus that records a video for the video search system according to the present embodiment and performs preprocessing for search.

  The video collection device 10 includes a device for recording and a device for creating an index for searching from a recorded moving image. A video camera 12 and a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver 14 are mounted on a car, the front is photographed and the position of the car is measured three-dimensionally, and the target road (here, an expressway is taken as an example) Drive on. The shooting range of the video camera 12 is set so as to include a distance board indicating the distance from the base point on the road, a traffic sign, a bulletin board for directions around the road, and the like. As is well known, the GPS receiver 14 acquires the three-dimensional position coordinates in the terrestrial coordinate system using radio waves from GPS satellites.

  The moving picture compression apparatus 16 compresses the shot video from the video camera 12 by a known moving picture compression method (for example, MPEG2 or H.264), and generates a moving picture file 18. Simultaneously with the moving image compression, the moving image compression device 16 appropriately embeds the three-dimensional position data output from the GPS receiver 14 in the compressed video data. For example, the three-dimensional position data may be embedded as metadata of each frame of video data or frames at appropriate intervals, or may be appropriately multiplexed with compressed video data. Further, if synchronized in time, it may be a separate file that associates each frame of a video with a three-dimensional position different from the moving image file 18. When the altitude value is unnecessary, the position data may be two-dimensional data of longitude and latitude.

  After recording the moving image and the shooting position in this way, the operator reproduces the moving image file 18 using the reproducing device 20. The playback device 20 plays back the video signal and position data included in the moving image file 18, superimposes the position data on the video signal, and supplies it to the video monitor 24. Thus, the operator can visually confirm the shooting location on the video.

  The playback device 20 also outputs the frame number 20a of the video frame displayed on the video monitor 22, the position (file position information) 20b on the moving image file 18, and the position data 20c measured by the GPS receiver 14, These data 20a, 20b, and 20c are written in the moving image index table 24. The moving image index table 24 makes it possible to immediately detect the position on the moving image file 18 and the shooting position coordinates for each frame of the moving image file 18. The moving image index table 24 is attached to the moving image file 28 and uses the same file name as the moving image file 18 except for the extension portion. In the example shown in FIG. 1, the file name of the moving image file 18 is A0001. mov, and the moving image index table 24 is A0001. idx.

  The frame number output from the playback device 20 is also supplied to the link index table (Link-Mov.idx) 26. The link index table 26 is an index for video search described later. A road network database 28 configured as shown in FIG. 6 is connected to the link index table 26, and the file name of the moving image file 18 is further supplied. In accordance with the operator's write instruction, the corresponding frame number from the playback device 20, the link information (link number, start node and end node) from the road network database 28, the video file name, etc. Stored.

  In this embodiment, since the video file obtained by traveling along the roads constituting a plurality of links is used for searching without being divided for each link, a plurality of links for one link of the road network are used. There may be a video file. It is necessary to indicate which video file of a plurality of video files is to be adopted for one link, and more appropriate one can be selected from the plurality of video files. For convenience of search, it is necessary to know in advance which frame portion of the adopted moving image file corresponds. Such a relationship is described in the link index table 26.

  FIG. 2 shows a configuration example of the link index table 26 for the road network shown in FIG. 5 and the road network database shown in FIG. In FIG. 2, for the sake of easy understanding, the start point node, end point node and attribute for each link described in the road network database 28 are also described in the link index table 26, but these pieces of information are linked. You may exclude from the index table 26. FIG. This is because the road network database 28 may be referred to when necessary. The shooting date is taken from the creation date of the moving image file, and the shooting time is taken from time data embedded in each frame at the time of shooting. The start frame corresponds to the frame of the video signal for photographing the start point node. The end frame corresponds to the frame of the video signal for photographing the end point node. Both the start frame and the end frame are designated by the operator by visually confirming the start point node and the end point node on the screen of the video monitor 22, respectively. In addition, the position indicated by the position data from the GPS receiver 14 may be displayed with an icon or the like superimposed on the road map, and the operator may determine the node based on the display position of the icon.

  In the existing moving image compression system, in order to increase the compression rate, intra-frame coding and inter-frame prediction coding are used in combination. A frame coded by intraframe coding is called an I picture, and a frame coded by interframe prediction coding is called a P picture in the case of unidirectional prediction and a B picture in the case of bidirectional prediction. When decompressing a compressed moving image, it is necessary to start decompression from an I picture. Therefore, for the start frame, an I picture frame preceding the video frame indicating the original start point node may be designated. Furthermore, video display may be started from the start frame while the I picture is used as the expansion start frame. Since an I picture is normally inserted every 0.5 seconds, the error of the displayed image is at most 0.5 seconds.

  By repeating the above-described processing for a plurality of roads, moving images for a plurality of roads can be recorded, and the link index table 26 for the road network to be searched can be generated.

  FIG. 3 shows a schematic block diagram of a video search apparatus that uses a plurality of video files 18 and a video index table 24 and a link index table 26 attached to each of the video files 18 to reproduce a video of a desired link.

  The video search device 40 is actually realized by a computer. The CPU 42 executes a video search program stored in the memory 44. The hard disk 46 includes a plurality of moving image files 18-1 to 18-n having different shooting paths, a plurality of moving image index tables 24-1 to 24-n corresponding to the moving image files 18-1 to 18-n, and links. An index table 26 is stored.

  In addition, the map data 48 and the road network database 50 are recorded on the hard disk 44 or another recording medium, or can be used via a communication network. The road network database 50 is substantially the same as the road network database 28, but of course, necessary data is appropriately supplemented to the road network database 28 and unnecessary data is deleted.

  The moving picture decompression device 52 decompresses the designated frame range of the designated moving picture files 18-1 to 18-n, and supplies the reproduced video signal to the video monitor 54.

  The operator can specify an arbitrary link on an arbitrary road on the map displayed on the screen of the video monitor 54 with the mouse 56. The operator can also directly specify a link by inputting a road name or the like using the keyboard 58.

  FIG. 4 shows an operation flowchart of the video search device 40. The operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

  The CPU 42 displays a map of the map data 48 on the video monitor 54 (S1). At that time, the link stored in the road network database 50 and node information are associated with the road on the displayed map and stored in the memory 44.

  When the operator designates a point on a link of any road on the map displayed on the video monitor 54 with the mouse 56 (S2), the CPU 42 sets the two-dimensional coordinates of the point (designated point) designated by the operator. read. The CPU 42 refers to the road network database and specifies a link (designated link) including the designated point (S3). If the specified point is off the road, correct it to the closest point on the road.

  The CPU 42 collates the designated link with the link index table 26 and specifies a moving image file for photographing the designated link and its start frame and end frame (S4).

  A frame having a two-dimensional coordinate value closest to the two-dimensional coordinate of the designated point is searched from the moving image index table attached to the identified moving image file within the range from the start frame to the end frame (S5).

  The frame from the searched frame to the end frame of the identified moving image file or the frame from the preceding I picture to the end frame is read from the hard disk 46 and supplied to the moving image decompression device 52 (S6). The moving image decompression device 52 decompresses the compressed video data supplied from the hard disk 46 and supplies the reproduced video signal to the video monitor 54. Thereby, the moving image after the designated point of the link including the point designated by the operator on the map is displayed on the screen of the video monitor 54.

  On the screen of the video monitor 40, the map of the map data and the moving image are simultaneously displayed in different windows, and the designated link is highlighted on the map, thereby making it easy to understand the correspondence between the road link and the moving image. At this time, if the position corresponding to the reproduced video is displayed on the map with an icon or the like, the position indicated by the video can be easily grasped. The CPU 42 can know the two-dimensional position corresponding to the reproduced video by referring to the position data recorded in the moving image index table 24, and can display it superimposed on the map on the video monitor 40.

  Although the road network has been described as an example, it is obvious that the present embodiment can be applied to a river network as it is.

  Although the invention has been described with reference to specific illustrative embodiments, various modifications and alterations may be made to the above-described embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the claims. This is obvious to an engineer in the field to which the present invention belongs, and such changes and modifications are also included in the technical scope of the present invention.

1 shows a schematic block diagram of a video data collection device of a video search system according to the present embodiment. It is an example of a link index table. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a video search apparatus according to an embodiment. The operation | movement flowchart of the image | video search device 40 is shown. A schematic diagram of a road network in an expressway interchange is shown. The example of a description of the database expressing the road network shown in FIG. 5 is shown.

Explanation of symbols

10: Video collection device 12: Video camera 14: GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver 16: Video compression device 18: Video file 20: Playback device 20a: Frame number 20b: File position information 20c: Position data 22: Video monitor 24 : Movie index table 26: Link index table 28: Road network database 40: Video search device 42: CPU
44: Memory 46: Hard disk 48: Map data 50: Road network database 52: Video decompression device 54: Video monitor 56: Mouse 58: Keyboard

Claims (1)

Multiple video files (18),
A plurality of video index tables (24) attached to each of the plurality of video files and storing the correspondence between the frames of the corresponding video files and the shooting positions;
A link index table (26) for storing a moving image file corresponding to each link and its start frame and end frame for a network represented by links and nodes, such as a road network or a river network;
Point designation means (S1, S2) for designating a point on the map;
A link search means (S3) for searching for a link corresponding to the spot designated by the spot designation means;
With reference to the link index table, a video file search unit (S4) for searching for a video file corresponding to the link searched by the link search unit and its start frame and end frame;
A video frame search unit (S5) for searching for a video frame corresponding to the point designated by the point designating unit with reference to a video index table attached to the video file searched by the video file search unit;
Movie file playback means (S6) for playing back video frames searched by the video frame search means of the video file searched by the video file search means
A video search apparatus comprising:

Images