JP2010191888A - Image processing apparatus and traffic monitoring device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To detect a traffic phenomenon such as a stopping vehicle, congestion or a falling object, without being affected by a road surface changing by an environment or a weather of the site. <P>SOLUTION: A traffic monitoring device includes: a monitoring camera 1 installed on a road; a vehicle candidate domain extraction part 11 for extracting a vehicle candidate domain by using a background differential method from a camera image; a road surface domain extraction part 12 for extracting a road surface domain in consideration of a road surface state changing by an environment or a weather from the camera image; a vehicle domain extraction part 13 for detecting a vehicle domain by operating the vehicle candidate domain and the road surface domain, and by removing a noise domain and a road surface domain appearing by a change of the environment or the weather of the site included in the vehicle candidate domain; a traffic phenomenon detection part 3 for detecting a traffic phenomenon from a position of the vehicle domain output from the vehicle domain extraction part 13 and the ratio of the vehicle domain to the road surface; and a monitor display device 4 for displaying the detected traffic phenomenon on the camera image. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and a traffic monitoring apparatus that detect and monitor the presence or absence of a traffic event or a fallen object in a place with a high traffic volume such as an intersection or a place with a poor forward view such as a curve.

  Conventionally, surveillance cameras have been installed on the side of roads such as intersections and other places with high traffic volume or places with poor visibility, such as curves, and by using this surveillance camera to photograph the road surface of the location, In addition, a traffic monitoring system has been introduced that displays a video of a traffic event related to the presence or absence of a fallen object on a monitor display device and confirms the situation on the road surface of a streetlight place.

  In addition, an image processing apparatus has been developed that automatically detects a traffic event from an image captured by a surveillance camera by image processing. An image processing device that automatically detects a traffic event is widely used a background difference method that compares a captured image of a certain time ago with a captured image at the time of monitoring and detects the presence or absence of a vehicle from the luminance difference between the images. (Patent Document 1).

  In the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1, an image captured by a photographing camera is divided into images of a predetermined size by an image dividing unit, and then image features are extracted from the images of the divided regions. Then, the external environment to be imaged is determined from the image characteristics. Thereafter, a background difference image is generated from a background image that has already been shot and a shot image at the time of monitoring, and image processing is performed to detect a moving vehicle from the generated background difference image.

JP 2002-83301 A

  However, the image processing technique described in Patent Document 1 is an image process for eliminating misjudgment with daytime due to reflection of vehicle headlights, street lights, etc. at night when judging the external environment during the day and night. Thus, for example, when the road surface itself changes uniformly due to the local environment and weather, it is difficult to determine the vehicle only by using the background difference method.

  For example, when comparing a captured image before a certain time and a captured image at the time of monitoring, if snow falls between the time before the certain time and the time at the time of monitoring, there is no snow on the road surface before the certain time, Evenly, snowfall occurs on the road surface during monitoring. As a result, there is a possibility that a large luminance difference occurs between the photographed image of a predetermined time and the photographed image at the time of monitoring even though the road surface is the same, and the road surface with snow may be erroneously determined as the vehicle region.

  Moreover, as a general vehicle detection means using image processing, as represented by the background difference method, a vehicle region is detected from the feature that the vehicle and the road surface have different luminance distributions. That is, the area of the vehicle is detected from the captured image of the monitoring camera using the characteristics of the vehicle. The vehicle has characteristics that are not influenced by disturbances, although there are differences among passenger cars, large cars, and small cars. Therefore, the characteristics of the vehicle are defined, and the area of the vehicle is detected from the image of the photographing camera.

  However, on the other hand, the road surface condition varies not only by snowfall, but also by the local environment and weather, so there is a problem that it is difficult to define certain characteristics. Since this changes uniformly according to the local environment and weather, the brightness differs between the image before a certain time and the image at the time of monitoring, and for example, it is erroneously determined as a vehicle region in which a plurality of vehicles overlap. There's a problem.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and grasps the road surface conditions that change uniformly depending on the local environment and weather, and detects the vehicle area by excluding the road surface area and the noise component area from the captured image. An object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus and a traffic monitoring apparatus that accurately detect and monitor a traffic event.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, an image processing apparatus according to the present invention includes a vehicle candidate area extraction unit that extracts a vehicle candidate area from a video of a surveillance camera installed at a required position on a road using a background difference method, Road surface area extraction means for extracting a road surface area from the video of the monitoring camera in consideration of the road surface state that changes depending on the local environment and weather, the vehicle candidate area extracted by the vehicle candidate area extraction means, and the road surface area extraction Vehicle area detection that detects a true vehicle area by calculating a road area extracted by the means and excluding a noise area and the road area that appear due to a change in local environment and weather included in the vehicle candidate area And means.

  The traffic monitoring apparatus according to the present invention includes a monitoring camera installed at a required position on a road, a vehicle candidate area extracting unit that extracts a vehicle candidate area from a video of the monitoring camera using a background difference method, and the monitoring Road surface area extraction means for extracting a road surface area from the video of the camera in consideration of the road surface state that changes depending on the local environment and weather, the vehicle candidate area extracted by the vehicle candidate area extraction means, and the road surface area extraction means Vehicle area detection means for calculating a road surface area extracted in step (1), excluding noise areas and road areas that appear due to changes in the local environment and weather included in the vehicle candidate area, and detecting a true vehicle area And a traffic event detector for detecting a traffic event such as a stopped vehicle or a traffic jam from the position of the vehicle region output from the vehicle region detection means and the ratio of the vehicle region to the road surface. When a configuration in which a monitor display device that displays traffic event sensed at this traffic event detection unit on the image of the monitoring camera.

  In addition, when the traffic event per fixed time detected by the traffic event detection means is a traffic event of the same result over a predetermined number of times, the occurrence of the traffic event is newly added to the configuration of the image processing apparatus described above. A configuration may be provided in which traffic event determination means for determining and displaying on the video displayed on the monitor display device is provided.

  Furthermore, as an image processing apparatus according to the present invention, a camera installation unit that installs a plurality of surveillance cameras along a road, and provided between the surveillance camera and the image processing apparatus, the traffic event determination unit Switching means for sequentially switching and selecting the plurality of monitoring cameras in response to a switching instruction signal every predetermined time, and the traffic event determining means sequentially determines the occurrence of traffic events from the images of the respective monitoring cameras. The display may be individually selected on the monitor display device or displayed in parallel in a predetermined divided area.

  According to the present invention, the situation of the road surface that changes uniformly according to the local environment and weather is grasped, and the vehicle area is detected by excluding the road surface area and the noise component area from the photographed video, thereby accurately identifying the traffic event. An image processing apparatus and a traffic monitoring apparatus that can detect and monitor can be provided.

The block diagram which shows 1st Embodiment of the traffic monitoring apparatus containing the image processing apparatus which concerns on this invention. FIG. 3 is a process flow diagram illustrating a process flow of a vehicle candidate area extraction unit illustrated in FIG. 1. The figure explaining the state when a road surface changes uniformly with local environment and the weather. FIG. 3 is a process flow diagram illustrating a process flow of a road surface area extraction unit illustrated in FIG. 1. The figure explaining the local region comparison process of FIG. The figure which shows typically an example of the vehicle candidate area | region and road surface area which are each extracted by the vehicle candidate area | region extraction part and road surface area extraction part of FIG. The block diagram which shows 2nd Embodiment of the traffic monitoring apparatus containing the image processing apparatus which concerns on this invention. The block diagram which shows 3rd Embodiment of the traffic monitoring apparatus containing the image processing apparatus which concerns on this invention. The block diagram which shows the other modification of 3rd Embodiment of the traffic monitoring apparatus containing the image processing apparatus which concerns on this invention.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
(First embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of a traffic monitoring apparatus using an image processing apparatus according to the present invention.

  The traffic monitoring device includes a monitoring camera 1 that captures a road, an image processing device 2 that performs image processing on a video (image) captured by the monitoring camera 1, and traffic event detection that is connected to the output side of the image processing device 2. And a monitor display device 4 for displaying a video photographed by the monitoring camera 1 and a traffic event detected by the traffic event detection unit 3.

  The monitoring camera 1 is installed on the side of a road such as a place with a lot of traffic such as an intersection or a place with a poor forward view such as a curve, and photographs the road surface of the place and vehicles on the road surface.

  The image processing apparatus 2 extracts a vehicle candidate area extraction unit 11 that extracts a candidate area of a vehicle in the video from the video captured by the monitoring camera 1, and extracts a road surface area in the video from the video captured by the monitoring camera 1. A road surface area extracting unit 12 that compares the vehicle candidate area extracted by the vehicle candidate area extracting unit 11 with the road surface area extracted by the road surface area extracting unit 12, and detects a vehicle area; Consists of.

  The traffic event detection unit 3 determines the traffic situation such as a stopped vehicle, a traffic jam, and a fallen object from the position of the vehicle region sent from the vehicle region detection unit 13, the vehicle speed and the ratio of the vehicle region to the road surface area, etc. It has a function of outputting traffic event data associated with the traffic situation contents defined in advance in the traffic event management table.

Next, the operation of the traffic monitoring device configured as described above will be described.
The surveillance camera 1 is installed at an appropriate location on a road that needs to be monitored. The surveillance camera 1 always photographs a road surface of a surveillance target location and a vehicle on the road surface, and the captured video is used as a vehicle constituting the image processing device 2. The data is sent to the candidate area extraction unit 11, the road surface area extraction unit 12, and the monitor display device 4.

The vehicle candidate area extraction unit 11 extracts a candidate area of the vehicle in the video from the video of the monitoring camera 1 according to the processing procedure as shown in FIG.
Specifically, the vehicle candidate region extraction unit 11 compares a video (background image) of the monitoring camera 1 before a certain time with a video taken by the monitoring camera 1 at the time of monitoring, and compares the images based on the background difference method. A comparison process 21 is executed to determine the luminance difference between the two images. That is, a background image in which the vehicle is not photographed is compared with an image photographed by the monitoring camera 1 at the time of monitoring, and a difference image in which a luminance difference between the images is calculated is obtained. For the background image, a median process is performed in which the luminance of the pixel at the same coordinate is obtained using a large number of videos before a certain period of time, and is replaced with an intermediate luminance between the obtained luminances. This creates a background image by performing median processing for each pixel.

  Subsequently, the luminance difference obtained by the inter-image comparison process 21 is compared with a predetermined threshold value, and a binarization process 22 is executed in which the luminance value exceeding the threshold value is set to “1”. . That is, a predetermined threshold value is set, and an area occupied by the vehicle is extracted by sequentially setting an area where the difference image exceeds the predetermined threshold value to “1”.

  Then, an expansion process and a reduction process are performed on the extracted area, and an area shaping process 23 for adjusting the shape of the area of the vehicle to be confirmed while erasing fine noise is executed. The candidate area of the vehicle is extracted.

On the other hand, the road surface area extraction unit 12 extracts the road surface area in the video from the video of the surveillance camera 1, but the road surface condition changes uniformly as shown in FIG. 3 due to the influence of the local environment and weather. ing.
FIG. 3A is a diagram showing a normal road surface state, and the color of the road surface (A) is expressed in gray, for example. The illustrated arrow (B) indicates the traveling direction of the traveling vehicle.

  By the way, when snow falls on the road surface (A), for example, a white road surface state representing snow (C) is obtained (see FIGS. 3B and 3C). That is, when snow falls on the road surface (I), snow (C) is generated, and the road surface (I) changes from gray to white as shown in FIG. 3B.

  Further, when the vehicle travels on a road surface in a state of snow (c), the vehicle is in a state in which a drunkenness (d) of the traveling vehicle is generated on the road surface as shown in FIG.

That is, if it is assumed that the influence of the weather etc. occurs uniformly on the road surface (A), it is considered that the traveling vehicle has the most influence on the state of the road surface (A). At this time, it can be assumed that the influence of the traveling vehicle appears uniformly with respect to the traveling direction (b) of the traveling vehicle. This is considered to be the same not only in snowfall but also in fine weather, cloudy weather, and rain. It is also possible that this will vary depending on the local environment. That is, it is considered that the road surface (A) is uniformly worn on the road surface when the vehicle travels on the road surface (A). It can be assumed that the discoloration of the road surface (A) due to wear and the water pool after rainfall on the bag (D) due to wear occur uniformly in the traveling direction (B) of the traveling vehicle.

  Therefore, the image processing apparatus and the traffic monitoring apparatus according to the present invention are provided with the road surface area extraction unit 12 to accurately extract the road surface conditions that change depending on the local environment and weather. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a series of processing procedures by the road surface area extraction unit 12.

  That is, the road surface area extraction unit 12 executes the local area comparison process 31 on the video imaged by the monitoring camera 1, executes the binarization process 32 and the area shaping process 33, The road surface area is extracted and sent to the vehicle area detector 13.

  As shown in FIG. 5, the local region comparison process 31 sets a local region 34a surrounding one pixel or a local region 34a surrounding a predetermined pixel (for example, 3 pixels) × predetermined pixel (for example, 3 pixels) = 9 pixels. .., While moving the local regions 34b, 34c,... Without overlapping in the traveling direction (b), while comparing the previous local region 31a and the moved local regions 34b, 34c,. -2 is performed to evaluate the similarity between the local regions 34a-34b, 34a-34c,. At this time, even if snow is generated due to the weather and the dredging (d) of the traveling vehicle is generated on the road surface (b), the local regions 34a-34b, 34a-34c are along the traveling direction (b) of the traveling vehicle. If the comparison is made between,,..., The similarity evaluation becomes high. As the video comparisons 35-1, 35-2 between the local regions 34a-34b, 34a-34c,..., There are a method of evaluating a luminance difference, a method of evaluating a luminance correlation, and the like.

  In any case, when the similarity between the front and back local areas is evaluated, the road surface (b) will be uniform with respect to changes in the local environment and weather relative to the traveling direction (b) of the traveling vehicle. However, if there is a vehicle in a local region, if the vehicle and the road surface (A) are compared locally, the similarity evaluation of the traveling vehicle will be low.

  As described above, the image comparisons 35-1, 35-2,... Are executed for all the pixels in the image of the monitoring camera 1 along the traveling direction (b) of the traveling vehicle.

  Subsequently, the binarization process 32 is executed. In the binarization process 32, a predetermined threshold value is set in advance, and the similarity is determined to be a predetermined threshold according to the similarity evaluated along the traveling direction (b) of the traveling vehicle in the local region comparison process 31. An area exceeding the value is extracted as “1”.

  Then, an area shaping process 33 is performed on the extracted area to perform a dilation process and a reduction process, and to adjust the shape of the area of the vehicle to be confirmed while eliminating fine noise components, and the road surface in the video of the surveillance camera 1 An area is extracted and sent to the vehicle area detection unit 13.

  As a result, when the vehicle (e) is traveling on the road surface (b) as shown in FIG. 6 (a), the vehicle candidate area extraction unit 11 is shown in FIG. Such a vehicle area (e ') can be extracted, while the road surface area extraction unit 12 extracts a road surface area (i') as shown in FIG. Can do. Note that (f) and (g) are noise areas such as hail, snow cover, and puddles that are projected under the influence of the local environment and weather, but the road surface area extraction unit 12 extracts them as a kind of vehicle candidate area. Is done.

  Therefore, the vehicle region detection unit 13 includes the vehicle candidate regions (e '), (f), (g) extracted by the vehicle candidate region extraction unit 11, and the road surface region (a') extracted by the road surface region extraction unit 12. Are used to exclude the vehicle candidate areas (F), (G) and the road surface area (A '), and take out the true vehicle area.

  That is, as one specific example of the vehicle area detection unit 13, the vehicle candidate areas (e), (f), (g) extracted by the vehicle candidate area extraction unit 11 and the road surface extracted by the road surface area extraction unit 12. An AND logic operation is performed on the area obtained by inverting the area (I '), and the vehicle candidate areas (F), (G) and the road surface area (I') are excluded, and only the true vehicle area is obtained. Detected and sent to the traffic event detector 3.

  The traffic event detection unit 3 stores in advance traffic event data (for example, traffic jam, vehicle stop, fallen object, etc.) according to the traffic event content in the traffic event management table, and is sent from the vehicle area detection unit 13. Judgment is made from the position of the area, the vehicle speed and the ratio of the vehicle area to the road surface area, etc., and the traffic event data causing the traffic jam is extracted from the traffic event management table and sent to the monitor display unit 4.

  Note that since the monitoring camera 1 is fixedly installed in advance for measuring the position of the vehicle area, the relationship between each image coordinate appearing in the video of the monitoring camera 1 and the absolute distance from the monitoring camera 1 is defined in the conversion table, and the vehicle Based on the image coordinates of the vehicle area detected by the area detection unit 13, absolute distance data is extracted from the conversion table, and the position of the vehicle area is obtained. At this time, it is desirable from the viewpoint of position accuracy that the position of the vehicle area is obtained from the image coordinates of the ground contact surface where the vehicle is in contact with the road surface in the vehicle area to obtain the position of the vehicle area. Therefore, a position is calculated | required from the coordinate of the lower part of a vehicle area | region.

  Furthermore, the traffic event detector 3 measures the vehicle speed from the time-series vehicle position and its time interval, and road surface area data in the camera field of view is stored in advance, and a vehicle area detector for road surface area data. A traffic event such as a stopped vehicle, a traffic jam, or a fallen object is detected from the ratio of the area of the vehicle area detected in 13, and traffic event data corresponding to the content of the traffic event is output.

  The monitor display device 4 displays data such as traffic jam data detected by the traffic event detection unit 3 such as traffic jam, vehicle stop, and falling objects in the video taken by the monitoring camera 1. The monitor can accurately confirm the current traffic event from the video displayed on the monitor display device 4 and the traffic event data.

  Therefore, according to the above-described embodiment, the road surface characteristic that the road surface state is uniform with respect to the traveling direction of the traveling vehicle on the road surface is defined. The candidate vehicle area is extracted using the difference method, and the road surface area is extracted by comparing the local areas, and the extracted road surface area is used for the local environment and weather other than the vehicle included in the vehicle candidate area. By excluding video noise and road area on the changing road surface, it is possible to reduce the erroneous detection of the vehicle area due to the background difference method or the like, and to confirm the traffic event more accurately.

(Second Embodiment)
FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of a traffic monitoring apparatus using the image processing apparatus according to the present invention. In the figure, the same or equivalent parts as in FIG. 1 are denoted by the same reference numerals, and detailed description thereof is omitted.

  The second embodiment is different from the first embodiment in that a traffic event determination unit 5 is newly provided on the output side of the traffic event detection unit 3.

  The traffic event determination unit 5 generates traffic events such as traffic jams, vehicle stops, and falling objects when the traffic events output from the traffic event detection unit 3 have the same detection result for a plurality of predetermined times. Is displayed on the monitor display device 4.

  Next, among the devices configured as described above, the operation of the traffic event determination unit 5 will be described in particular.

  First, as described above, the traffic event detection unit 3 detects a traffic event from the video of the monitoring camera 1 at regular intervals. The detected traffic event such as a stopped vehicle or a traffic jam is instantaneously generated / resolved. If it continues for a certain amount of time, it can be determined that a definite traffic event has occurred. That is, if the result of the traffic event detected from the traffic event detection unit 3 at regular intervals is the same traffic event for a plurality of times, it can be said that the detected traffic event is correct.

  Therefore, the traffic event determination unit 5 sets a predetermined number of times that can be definitely determined to be correct, compares the detection result of the traffic event output from the traffic event detection unit 3 every predetermined time with the previous detection result, When the same detection result as the detection result of the first traffic event is continuously received for a predetermined number of times, it is determined that a traffic event such as a stopped vehicle or a traffic jam has occurred for the first time and is displayed on the monitor display device 4.

  Therefore, according to the second embodiment as described above, when the detection result for each fixed time output from the traffic event detection unit 3 is continuously obtained multiple times, Since it is determined that the detection result of the traffic event is correct and is sent to the monitor display device 4, it is possible to obtain a more accurate traffic event than the detection result of the first embodiment, resulting in a false detection of the traffic event. Can be further reduced.

(Third embodiment)
FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a third embodiment of a traffic monitoring apparatus using the image processing apparatus according to the present invention. In the figure, the same or equivalent parts as in FIG. 1 are denoted by the same reference numerals, and detailed description thereof is omitted.

  In the third embodiment, a plurality of surveillance cameras 1a, 1b, and 1c are installed along a road when the traffic ahead is a place with a large traffic volume such as a long intersection or a place with a long curve, etc. It may be possible to determine the occurrence of a stopped vehicle, traffic jam or falling objects. Therefore, this embodiment is an example in which it is possible to cope with the above traffic events. Accordingly, since the other configuration is the same as that of the first and second embodiments, the same or equivalent parts are denoted by the same reference numerals, and detailed description thereof is omitted.

  In the third embodiment, the difference is that the switching means 6 for switching the output ends of the monitoring cameras 1a, 1b, 1c and the traffic event detection result from a video of a certain camera, for example, 1a, or a predetermined A traffic event determination unit 5a having a switching signal generation function for sending a switching instruction signal to the switching means 6 for each period is provided.

Next, the operation of the traffic monitoring device according to the third embodiment will be described.
First, based on the switching instruction signal from the traffic event determination unit 5a, the switching unit 6 selects the monitoring camera 1a, captures the video imaged by the monitoring camera 1a, and the vehicle candidate area extraction unit 11 and the road surface as described above. The data is sent to the area extraction unit 12 and the monitor display device 4, respectively.

  The vehicle candidate region extraction unit 11 and the road surface region extraction unit 12 each extract the vehicle candidate region and the road surface region in the video from the video of the monitoring camera 1a by the same image processing means as in the first embodiment, and further the traffic The event detection unit 13 detects a traffic event, and the traffic event determination unit 5 determines that a traffic event such as a stopped vehicle, a traffic jam, or a fallen object has occurred if the detected traffic event is the same result multiple times. And displayed on the monitor display device 4.

  Subsequently, the traffic event determination unit 5a sends a switching instruction signal to the switching means 6, sequentially selects the images of the monitoring camera 1b and the monitoring camera 1c, determines the occurrence of the traffic event in the same manner as described above, and displays on the monitor. Display on device 4.

  At this time, the monitor display device 4 is switched for each of the monitoring cameras 1a, 1b, and 1c to display camera images and traffic events. For example, the display area of the monitor display device 4 is previously divided into a plurality of divisions (for example, four divisions). The structure which displays simultaneously the image | video and traffic event of surveillance camera 1a, 1b, 1c over time may be sufficient.

  Thereby, the supervisor can grasp | ascertain the traffic event etc. of the whole intersection etc. correctly, globally.

  Furthermore, as another example, the traffic event determination unit 5 does not sequentially switch the monitoring cameras 1a, 1b, and 1c at every predetermined processing time, but for example, a video of a specific monitoring camera that monitors important points, for example, 1a. Only when it is determined that a traffic event has occurred, the other monitoring cameras 1b, 1c,... Are sequentially switched in order and the road condition is displayed on the monitor display device 4.

  When a plurality of surveillance cameras 1a, 1b, 1c,... Are installed, for each surveillance camera 1a, 1b, 1c,..., Vehicle candidate area extraction unit 11-road surface area extraction unit 12-traffic event detection unit 13 Even if the traffic event determination unit 5b determines whether or not a traffic event has occurred simultaneously in parallel under application software for individual processing, and displays it in the corresponding divided display area of the monitor display device 4. Good.

  FIG. 10 is a diagram showing another configuration example when a plurality of surveillance cameras 1a, 1b, 1c,... Are installed at a predetermined distance along the road.

  In general, the range that can be monitored by one monitoring camera, for example, 1a is about several tens of meters to 200 m, and in the case of a traffic event in which a plurality of vehicles are congested in series, a large number of monitoring cameras 1a, 1b, 1c,. Although it is necessary to install, it is necessary to determine the traffic event by dividing the monitoring range (monitoring section) of each monitoring camera 1a, 1b, 1c,.

  Therefore, in this embodiment, a part of the monitoring cameras are overlapped, and the first camera group including the monitoring cameras (1a-1b-1c) and the second camera group including the monitoring cameras (1b-1c-1d) are included. Keep groups.

  When each traffic event determination unit 5a determines that there is a traffic jam from all the images via the image processing device 2 described above from each image of a plurality of monitoring cameras 1a, 1b, 1c in a certain group, It is determined that a traffic event such as traffic jam has occurred in the monitoring sections 1b and 1c, and is displayed on the monitor display device 4.

  That is, on the condition that the video of the plurality of monitoring cameras for each camera group is the same traffic event, it is determined that a specific traffic event has occurred in the corresponding monitoring section, and is displayed on the monitor display device 4.

  As a display format, each group is divided into display areas 4a, 4b,..., And images of important monitoring cameras 1b in the first camera group and important monitoring cameras 1c in the second camera group are respectively displayed. In addition to displaying in the areas 4a, 4b,..., Traffic congestion character data or non-congestion character data is displayed in the areas 4a, 4b,..., Or an entire image of a road with a long intersection or a long curve is displayed on the monitor display device 4 The first group monitoring section = congestion and the second group monitoring section = congestion are displayed in a predetermined area in the entire video, or the monitoring section including the corresponding place in the direct video is displayed in different color data (for example, red). Or the monitoring section including the corresponding place in the video is displayed by blinking or the like.

  Therefore, according to the third embodiment, a traffic event is determined from all the images of the group monitoring cameras 1a, 1b, and 1c installed along the road, and the adjacent next group monitoring cameras 1b, 1c, and 1d are used. Traffic events are judged and displayed from all images of the vehicle, so traffic events can be accurately determined from areas such as long intersections where there is a lot of traffic or long curves, etc. The traffic event can be confirmed over a wide section.

  In addition, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1a, 1b, 1c, ... Monitoring camera, 2 ... Image processing apparatus, 3 ... Traffic event detection part, 4 ... Monitor display apparatus, 5, 5a ... Traffic event determination part, 6 ... Switching means, 11 ... Vehicle candidate area | region extraction , 12 ... Road surface area extraction part, 13 ... Vehicle area detection part, 21 ... Inter-image comparison process, 31 ... Local area comparison process, 22, 32 ... Binarization process, 23, 33 ... Area shaping process, 34a to 34c ... Local area, (I) ... Road surface, (I ') ... Road surface area, (B) Traveling direction of traveling vehicle, (C) ... Snow cover, (D) ... W, (E) ... Vehicle, (E') ... Vehicle candidate area.

Claims (6)

Vehicle candidate area extraction means for extracting a vehicle candidate area from a video of a surveillance camera installed at a required position on a road using a background difference method;
Road surface area extraction means for extracting a road surface area in consideration of the road surface state that changes depending on the local environment and weather from the video of the monitoring camera;
A noise region that appears due to a change in local environment or weather included in the vehicle candidate region by calculating the vehicle candidate region extracted by the vehicle candidate region extracting unit and the road surface region extracted by the road surface region extracting unit An image processing apparatus comprising: vehicle area detection means that excludes the road surface area and detects a true vehicle area. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1.
The road surface area extraction means sequentially sets a local area having a desired number of pixels without overlapping along the traveling direction of the traveling vehicle with respect to the video of the monitoring camera, and from the video comparison of the local areas before and after the local area Local region comparison processing means for evaluating similarity, and region extraction for extracting, as a road surface region, a region in which a threshold is set in advance and the similarity evaluation value obtained by the local region comparison processing unit exceeds the threshold And an image processing apparatus. A surveillance camera installed at the required location on the road;
The image processing apparatus having the configuration according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the true vehicle area is detected from a video of the monitoring camera;
A traffic event detection means for detecting a traffic event such as a stopped vehicle or a traffic jam from the position of the vehicle area output from the image processing apparatus and the ratio of the vehicle area to the road surface;
A traffic monitoring apparatus comprising: a monitor display device for displaying a traffic event detected by the traffic event detection means on an image of the monitoring camera. In the traffic monitoring device according to claim 3,
When the traffic event detected by the traffic event detection means is a traffic event of the same result over a predetermined number of times, it is determined that the traffic event has occurred, and the video displayed on the monitor display device A traffic monitoring apparatus, further comprising a traffic event determination means to be displayed. The traffic monitoring device according to claim 4,
Camera installation means for installing a plurality of surveillance cameras along the road, provided between these surveillance cameras and the image processing device, receiving a switching instruction signal every predetermined time from the traffic event judgment means, Switching means for sequentially switching and selecting a plurality of surveillance cameras,
The traffic event determination means sequentially determines the occurrence of a traffic event from the images of the respective monitoring cameras, and displays the traffic events individually on the monitor display device or simultaneously in a predetermined divided area. Traffic monitoring device. N (n is an integer) number of surveillance cameras installed at every required distance along the road;
Camera grouping means for grouping the n surveillance cameras into a plurality of surveillance cameras fewer than n in the adjacent relationship;
A group-corresponding image processing apparatus having a configuration according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a true vehicle area is detected from video of each monitoring camera belonging to each camera group provided for each camera group;
A vehicle that is provided for each group-corresponding image processing device and that is stopped from the position of the vehicle region and the ratio of the vehicle region to the road surface from the video of each monitoring camera belonging to the group that is output from each group-corresponding image processing device, A group-compatible traffic event detection means for detecting traffic events such as traffic jams,
When the traffic event per fixed time obtained from the images of all the monitoring cameras belonging to the group detected by the traffic event detection means corresponding to each group is a traffic event of the same result over a predetermined number of times, the group section A traffic monitoring apparatus comprising: a traffic event determination means for determining that a traffic event has occurred over a period of time and displaying the traffic event on the monitor display device.

Images