JP2013172224A - Video processing device and video display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable more favorable video display depending on a photographing environment.SOLUTION: A video processing device comprises: a video analysis unit that analyzes a signal component of input video; an environment estimation unit that estimates a photographing environment on the basis of the analysis result of the video; an image quality correction unit that corrects the input video on the basis of the estimated environment; and a display unit that displays video output from the image quality correction unit. The image quality correction unit corrects the input video depending on the estimation result of the environment estimation unit.

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for correcting a captured image.

  In recent years, a car is equipped with a camera, and images around the car are displayed on the display in the car, which can be used for safety confirmation when driving the car, or obstacles are detected from the video, and the driver Some of them have been used to alert people and control the movement of cars. Since the environment around the vehicle changes constantly due to differences in time zones such as day and night, and weather, the video content such as the brightness and color of the video shot by the camera also changes. On the other hand, it is needless to say that the image displayed in the vehicle is required to be displayed so that it is always easy to see regardless of the environment around the vehicle.

  As a general camera function, a contrast correction function according to the brightness of the shooting environment is provided. In addition to this, as a display device function, for example, as shown in Patent Document 1, night time In addition to providing image quality correction modes such as / evening / rainy weather / snowfall, and providing an image quality correction table for each mode, as shown in Patent Document 2, It is considered that the surrounding environment is estimated from the control value of the camera and the captured pixel value to detect the lane on the road surface.

JP 2004-312301 A JP 2008-28957 A

  In the technique described in Patent Document 1, although it is possible to change the rough display mode such as nighttime or daytime, the correspondence to the surrounding environment that changes from moment to moment is not described, and the driver also switches the mode. There is a need. The technique described in Patent Document 2 only improves the accuracy of lane detection and the like by estimating the surrounding environment and correcting the image based on the illuminance of the image taken by the camera. No suitable processing is mentioned.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to enable more suitable video display according to the shooting environment.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, in one embodiment of the present invention, for example, a video analysis unit that analyzes a signal component of an input video and an environment estimation unit that estimates a captured environment based on the video analysis result And an image quality correction unit that corrects the input video based on the estimated environment, and the image quality correction unit corrects the image quality of the input video according to the environment estimation result in the environment estimation unit.

  More suitable video display according to the shooting environment is possible.

It is a figure which shows an example of a structure of Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the image | video analysis part of Example 1 of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the image quality correction | amendment part of Example 1 of this invention. It is an example of the brightness | luminance histogram of an image | video. It is an example of the brightness | luminance histogram of an image | video. It is an example of the brightness | luminance histogram of an image | video. It is an example of the brightness | luminance histogram of an image | video. This is an example in which the histogram distribution of video is biased. It is an example of the histogram of the image | video which performed the image quality correction | amendment. It is an example of the histogram of the edge amount of an image | video. It is an example of the histogram of the edge amount of an image | video. It is an example of the histogram of the edge amount of an image | video. It is a figure which shows an example of a structure of Example 2 of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of a structure of Example 3 of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of a structure of Example 4 of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of a structure of Example 5 of this invention.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. However, the present invention is not necessarily limited to these embodiments. Also, in the drawings for describing the embodiments, the same reference numerals are given to components having the same function, and the repeated description thereof is omitted.

  First, the configuration of the first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the overall system configuration of a first embodiment of the present invention. 100 is a vehicle equipped with the system of the first embodiment of the present invention, 1 is a video analysis unit, 2 is an environment estimation unit, 3 is an image quality control unit, 4 is an image quality correction unit, 5 is an image composition unit, and 6 is a video processing device. , 7 is a display device, and 8 is a camera unit. The video 9 taken by the camera unit 8 is analyzed by the video analysis unit 1 and input to the environment estimation unit 2 as analysis information 10. The environment estimation unit 2 estimates the captured environment based on the analysis information 10 and inputs the environment as the environment information 11 to the image quality control unit 3. The image quality control unit 3 outputs an image quality control value 12 based on the environment information 11, and the image quality correction unit 4 corrects the video 9. The image synthesizing unit 5 synthesizes and outputs the image 13 whose image quality has been corrected and a graphic image such as a navigation image or an OSD display, and displays it on the display unit 7.

  FIG. 2 shows a configuration example of the video analysis unit 1. 1a is a luminance component analyzer, 1b is a color component analyzer, and 1c is a contour component analyzer. In the present configuration example, three types of analysis of the luminance component, the color component, and the contour component are performed. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and it may be configured to analyze at least one type of video component. FIG. 3 shows a configuration example of the image quality correction unit 4. 4a is a noise reduction unit, 4b is a luminance correction unit, 4c is a contour correction unit, and 4d is a color correction unit. This configuration example is also configured with four types of image quality correction functions, but is not limited to this.

  Next, an example of the operation of the above configuration will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 4 shows an example of the luminance component for one frame of the video. The horizontal axis indicates the luminance level, and the vertical axis indicates the distribution frequency of each luminance level. The displayable luminance level of the display unit 7, that is, the dynamic range is assumed to be a range from the lowest luminance level on the horizontal axis to the highest luminance level. In order to display an image with high visibility and easy to see on the display unit 7, it is desirable to use the entire dynamic range. In other words, it is ideal that the displayed video is a video component as indicated by the hatched lines in FIG.

  On the other hand, an example in which the luminance component is biased is shown in FIG. In the example of FIG. 5A, the luminance of the highest luminance level is in the lower direction, and the level of the entire video component is also biased in the lower direction. When such an image is displayed, the display is dark overall and poorly visible.

  On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 5B, if the luminance of the lowest luminance level is high and the level of the whole video is also high, the displayed video is bright, but the whole image becomes whitish and has poor visibility. It becomes a picture.

  Therefore, the video analysis unit 1 of the present invention described above detects the highest luminance level, the lowest luminance level, and the average luminance level of the video. The environment estimation unit 2 determines the environment outside the vehicle using the maximum brightness level, the minimum brightness level, the average brightness level, and the like.

  For example, in the example of FIG. 5A, the highest luminance level of the video is compared with the threshold S1 (threshold for determining the dark environment based on the highest luminance level), and when the highest luminance level is lower than the threshold S1, the “dark environment” ”Can be determined. As another determination processing example, for example, in the example of FIG. 5A, the average luminance level of the video is compared with a threshold S2 (threshold for determining dark environment based on the average luminance level), and the average luminance level is the threshold S2. If it is lower than that, it may be determined as “dark environment”. Furthermore, as another example of determination processing, for example, in the example of FIG. 5A, the above-described two determination criteria are combined, the maximum luminance level is lower than the threshold value S1, and the average luminance level of the video is the threshold value S2. If it is lower than that, it may be determined as “dark environment”.

  When the environment estimation unit 2 determines “dark environment” as described above, under the control of the image quality control unit 3, the image quality correction unit 4 corrects the video component to expand the entire dynamic range so as to approach the distribution shown in FIG. 4. I do.

  Next, for example, in the example of FIG. 5B, the lowest luminance level of the video is compared with the threshold S3 (the threshold for determining the bright environment based on the lowest luminance level), and when the lowest luminance level is higher than the threshold S3, What is necessary is just to determine with "bright environment". As another determination processing example, for example, in the example of FIG. 5B, the average luminance level of the video is compared with a threshold S4 (threshold for determining bright environment based on the average luminance level), and the average luminance level is the threshold S4. If it is higher, the “bright environment” may be determined. Furthermore, as another example of determination processing, for example, in the example of FIG. 5B, the above-described two determination criteria are combined, the minimum luminance level is higher than the threshold value S3, and the average luminance level of the video is the threshold value S4. If it is higher, the “bright environment” may be determined.

  When the environment estimation unit 2 determines “bright environment” as described above, under the control of the image quality control unit 3, the image quality correction unit 4 corrects the video component to expand over the entire dynamic range so as to be closer to the distribution shown in FIG. 4. I do.

  Further, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, when the highest luminance level of the video is equal to or higher than the threshold S1 and the lowest luminance level of the video is equal to or lower than the threshold S3, or when the average luminance level is equal to or higher than the threshold S2 and lower than the threshold S4. If it is determined that neither the above-described “bright environment” nor “dark environment” is determined, the image quality correction may not be performed. In the case of such a video distribution, it is considered that the visibility of the video is not so bad. Therefore, the power of the video processing apparatus can be saved by turning off the image correction processing.

  The above determination control and image quality correction control may be performed, for example, every frame of the video. According to the above-mentioned control, even when the captured image changes from moment to moment, it is possible to display an image using a wider dynamic range than when imaging, and display an image with good visibility. become.

  In the above description, in the example of FIG. 5A, descriptions of the determination based on the minimum luminance level and the threshold S3 and the determination based on the average luminance level and S4 are omitted. However, as apparent from a comparison between FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B, the minimum luminance level in FIG. 5A is equal to or lower than the threshold value S3, and the average luminance level is equal to or lower than the threshold value S4. It is not determined as “bright environment”.

  Further, in the above description, in the example of FIG. 5B, description of the determination based on the maximum luminance level and the threshold value S1 and the determination based on the average luminance level and S2 is omitted. However, as apparent from a comparison between FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B, the maximum luminance level in FIG. 5B is equal to or higher than the threshold value S1, and the average luminance level is equal to or higher than the threshold value S2. It is not determined to be “dark environment”.

  In the above example, the environment estimation unit 3 has been described as estimating “dark environment” and “bright environment”. However, the environment estimation unit 3 subdivides by providing a plurality of values for determining the brightness level, for example, “night” and “morning and evening”. "Daytime (cloudy weather)" "Daytime (clear weather)" may be estimated. For example, when it is determined as “night”, the same processing as the above “dark environment” may be performed. Further, when it is determined as “daytime (clear sky)”, the same processing as the above “bright environment” may be performed. Further, when it is determined as “daytime (cloudy)”, the above-described image quality correction may not be performed. Further, when it is determined that “morning and evening”, color correction described later may be performed.

  In addition, the video analysis unit 1 has been described as detecting the highest luminance level, the lowest luminance level, and the average luminance level of the video for use in estimating the environment in order to estimate the environment. Here, as another example, an example of detection as a luminance histogram will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 7 shows an example of the luminance histogram of the input image 9, where the horizontal axis indicates the luminance level and the vertical axis indicates the distribution frequency of each luminance level. When the video histogram is detected by the video analysis unit 1 as described above, the environment estimation unit 2 estimates the environment similar to the above-described embodiment based on the center of gravity of the histogram and a predetermined value, for example, and the image quality control unit 3 Then, the image quality correction unit 4 corrects the video 9. An example of the luminance histogram of the corrected video is shown in FIG.

  The image quality correction unit 4 corrects the center of gravity of the histogram in a direction in which the luminance is higher, and corrects so that the region shown in FIG. 7 has a luminance level larger than a predetermined value. Since the luminance level with a high frequency of the luminance histogram has a large area in the screen, it is possible to display an image with high visibility by controlling the luminance difference in the region to be large.

  Next, an operation example of the color component analysis unit 1b in the video analysis unit 1 will be described. The color component analysis unit 1b detects at least one of hue and saturation among the color components of the video as histogram information. In the environment estimation unit 2, when the red component of the hue is larger than a predetermined value, it is determined as “morning and evening”, and the image quality correction unit 4 corrects the video 9 through the image quality control unit 3. For example, by reducing the level of the red component of the reddish video in the morning and evening video and using it together with the correction with the luminance information described above, it is possible to realize video display with good visibility as in the daytime. Further, when the saturation information is lower than a predetermined saturation, control is performed so as to increase the saturation. For example, an image around a car has a lot of roads and few color components, whereas an object such as a person or car has many color components. Visibility can be improved.

  Next, an operation example of the contour component analysis unit 1c in the video analysis unit 1 will be described with reference to FIGS. First, in FIG. 9, the horizontal axis represents the amplitude level of the edge component (contour component), and the vertical axis represents the frequency distribution at each level. In a video component, a region having a relatively small edge amplitude level is often a noise component in the video, and a region having a relatively large edge amplitude level is often the contour of an object in the video. In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 10, the image quality correction of the video 9 is performed by the image quality correction unit 4 via the image quality control unit 3 so as to lower the edge amplitude in a region where the edge amplitude level is smaller than a predetermined value. . This processing is performed by the noise reduction unit 4a in the image quality correction unit 4. Thereby, the noise component can be suppressed and the visibility of the object to be watched can be improved.

  In addition to the above control, control may be performed so that the edge amplitude is increased in a region where the edge amplitude level is larger than a predetermined value. This processing is performed by the contour correction unit 4c in the image quality correction unit 4. According to this process, noise can be suppressed and the contour of the object to be watched can be made clear, so that a highly visible display can be achieved. In this control, noise suppression may not be performed, and only control for increasing the amplitude of the edge in a region larger than a predetermined value may be performed.

  According to the video processing technique according to the first embodiment of the present invention described above, the image quality can be corrected after estimating the environment based on the analysis of the video of each frame, so that the shooting environment changes from moment to moment. Accordingly, more suitable video display can be realized. That is, a more suitable video display according to the shooting environment is possible.

  A second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. In the first embodiment, the configuration example and the operation for one video input have been described, but in this embodiment, a configuration example in the case of two video inputs is shown.

  Reference numeral 1200 denotes a vehicle equipped with the system according to the second embodiment of the present invention, 8b denotes a camera unit, 3b denotes an image quality control unit, and 4b denotes an image quality correction unit. Since operations of the video analysis unit 1, the environment estimation unit 2, the image quality control unit 3, and the image quality correction unit 4 to which the video 9 from the camera unit 8 is connected are the same as those in the first embodiment, description thereof is omitted here.

  Various examples of the installation direction of the camera unit 8 and the camera unit 8b in the vehicle are conceivable. One may be installed in the direction of imaging the front of the vehicle, and the other may be installed in the direction of imaging the rear of the vehicle. In this case, it can be used as a front view camera and a rear view camera. Further, as another configuration example, both may be installed in a direction in which the front (or rearward if necessary) of the vehicle is imaged, and two parallax images with parallax may be captured. In this case, an imaging system for distance measurement and 3D video display can be configured.

  Hereinafter, the part to which the video from the camera unit 8b is connected and the operation of the image composition unit 5 will be described. The image 9b of the camera unit 8b is corrected by the image quality correction unit 4b. This control is performed via the image quality control unit 3b based on the estimation result of the environment estimation unit 2 that performs environment estimation using the captured image of the camera unit 8. To be done. This is because, when the camera unit 8 and the camera unit 8b each capture the outside of the vehicle 1200, they are capturing a close environment, and the similarity of the video content is high. Therefore, there is no practical problem even if the estimation result of the environment estimation unit 2 is corrected. In this way, by estimating the environment outside the vehicle using the video captured by one camera and using the result of the environmental estimation in common for image quality correction of the video captured by multiple cameras, multiple cameras A video processing apparatus can be configured at a lower cost than performing each environment estimation process for each captured video.

  Next, the output image 13b of the image quality correction unit 4b and the output video 13 of the image quality correction unit 4 are input to the image composition unit 5 and processing is performed. The processing in the image synthesizing unit 5 may be various processes other than synthesizing graphic images such as navigation images and OSD displays.

  First, when one camera is installed in the direction of imaging the front of the vehicle (for front view) and the other camera is installed in the direction of imaging the rear of the vehicle (for rear view), instruction information from a user (not shown) Either one of the videos may be selected and output by the input unit. Further, an output video may be generated so that both videos can be displayed in respective areas of the display screen of the display unit 7 by performing resizing conversion processing or the like. The output video is input to the display unit 7 and displayed. In this case, as a method of combining and displaying the images, there are a method of displaying them side by side on the screen, a method of displaying them side by side, and the like. Moreover, you may comprise so that an output image | video may be produced | generated using the existing technique which converts each image | video so that it may be seen from the viewpoint which looks down at a vehicle.

  Also, when both cameras are installed in the direction to capture the front of the vehicle and configured to shoot two viewpoint images with parallax, either one of the images may be selected and output as a 2D image. Alternatively, a 3D image may be generated using both images and displayed as a 3D image. In this case, the display unit 7 needs to use a display device capable of 3D video. The 3D video display method in the display unit 7 may be a naked-eye stereoscopic method or a method that requires polarized glasses or liquid crystal shutter glasses. Both of these can be realized with existing technology. When the display unit 7 and the video processing device 6 are configured as an integrated system, the format of the 3D video output from the video processing device 6 to the display unit 7 may be a unique format. When the display unit 7 and the video processing device 6 are separately connected to each other through an interface, the 3D video output from the video processing device 6 to the display unit 7 is defined by a standard using, for example, an HDMI interface. What is necessary is just to transmit in 3D format.

  According to the present embodiment, it is possible to estimate the environment based on an image captured by one camera, correct two camera images, and display them as images with good visibility.

  In this embodiment, a configuration example using two cameras has been described. However, there is no problem with any number of cameras, and other camera videos are corrected and controlled based on the environment estimation result of one of the plurality of cameras. With this configuration, since the environment estimation function other than one camera is unnecessary, it is possible to provide a technique for displaying a plurality of camera images with high visibility at a lower cost.

  According to the video processing technique according to the second embodiment of the present invention described above, even if the configuration includes a plurality of cameras, a more preferable video display according to the shooting environment is possible with a lower-cost configuration.

  A third embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. In the present embodiment, two cameras are used as in the second embodiment, but a video analysis section 1b, an environment estimation section 2b, and a difference analysis section 20 are provided. Reference numeral 1300 denotes a vehicle equipped with the system of the third embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 13, the camera unit 8 and the camera unit 8b are both installed in a direction to image the front (or rear if necessary) of the vehicle, and are configured to shoot two viewpoint videos with parallax. .

  Hereinafter, an operation example will be described. The video component of the video 9b of the camera unit 8b is analyzed by the video analysis unit 1b. The operation of the video analysis unit 1b is the same as that of the first embodiment, and a description thereof is omitted here. The difference analysis unit 20 inputs the analysis results of the video analysis unit 1b and the video analysis unit 1, analyzes the difference between the two, and outputs difference information. The image quality control unit 3b controls the image quality correction unit 4b using the difference information and the analysis result of the environment estimation unit 2. According to this configuration, the visibility of the two images can be improved similarly to the second embodiment, and for example, even when there is a difference between the output images of both the camera 8 and the camera 8b, the difference is analyzed by the difference analysis unit 20. Since it can be detected and corrected by the image quality control unit 4b so as to eliminate the difference, the difference in image quality between the two images after correction can be reduced. In this way, for example, when a 3D image is displayed with the taken two viewpoints below, it is possible to reduce the difference in image quality between the right eye image and the left eye image. Higher visibility video display can be realized.

  In the present embodiment, a configuration example using two cameras has been described, but a larger number of cameras may be used. If the number of video analysis units and difference analysis units are increased in the same way, and other camera images are corrected and controlled based on the environment estimation results and difference analysis results from one of the multiple images, they will be visible as well. It is possible to display high-quality images from multiple cameras.

  According to the video processing technique according to the third embodiment of the present invention described above, even when a plurality of cameras are provided, it is possible to reduce the difference in image quality between videos taken by the cameras and to display more suitable video. It becomes.

  A configuration example of the fourth embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Reference numeral 1400 denotes a vehicle equipped with the system of the fourth embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 21 denotes a signal of in-vehicle information, and the image quality control unit is configured to control the image quality correction unit using the in-vehicle information together with the environment estimation result described in the first embodiment.

  For example, the operation when the vehicle 1400 is provided with a date / time information management unit 1412 for managing date / time information and time information and the time information is input as the in-vehicle information 21 to the image quality control unit 3c will be described. Note that the date / time information management unit 1412 may be shared with a unit that manages time information used for clock display in the vehicle 1400. In the first embodiment, day and night are estimated based on video analysis, but in this embodiment, environment estimation is performed using time information. For example, since it is possible to discriminate between day and night according to the time, a rough determination is made based on the time, and a morning / evening determination in the meantime is performed based on the video. As a result, it is possible to perform highly accurate image quality correction even in a time zone in which the brightness varies depending on the season.

  Further, for example, the image quality control unit 3c may acquire the date / time information in addition to the time information as the image quality control unit 3c from the date / time information management unit 1412. The image quality control unit 3c can be used for the day / night discrimination process by referring to the sunrise time information and sunset time information for each date stored in advance in a storage unit (not shown) using the acquired date information. The sunrise time information and sunset time information stored in the storage unit may be set so that the sunrise time is early, the sunset time is late in summer, the sunrise time is late, and the sunset time is early in winter.

  Further, the vehicle 1400 may be provided with a weather information management unit 1414 for managing weather information, and the in-vehicle information 21 may include the weather information and input to the image quality control unit 3c. In this case, the image quality control unit 3c can determine whether the weather is fine / rainy / falling snow using the acquired weather information and change the image quality control mode. The weather information management unit 1414 may acquire the weather information via the wireless information acquisition unit 1413 included in the vehicle 1400. The information acquisition method by the wireless information acquisition unit 1413 may be a method of acquiring information via broadcast waves such as FM broadcast waves, terrestrial waves, and satellite broadcasts, or may be a method of acquiring information via mobile phone network communication, A method of receiving information from devices such as a radio beacon and an optical beacon installed around the road may be used.

  Further, the vehicle 1400 may be provided with a wiper operation state management unit 1415 that manages the operation state of the wiper, and the in-vehicle information 21 may be input to the image quality control unit 3c including the wiper operation information. In this case, the image quality control unit 3c may determine whether the weather is sunny or rainy based on the acquired wiper operation information. If the wiper operation information indicates that the wiper is operating, it may be determined that it is raining.

  Further, the vehicle 1400 is provided with a light lighting state management unit 1416 for managing the lighting state of the light (headlight), and the image quality control unit 3c includes the lighting state information of the light (headlight) in the in-vehicle information 21. You may enter. In this case, the image quality control unit 3c may perform the above “dark environment” determination based on the acquired lighting state of the light. That is, when the lighting state information of the light indicates “light lighting”, it may be determined as “dark environment”.

  Further, the illuminance information of the ambient light outside the vehicle acquired by the illuminance sensor 1411 provided in the vehicle 1400 may be included in the in-vehicle information 21 and input to the image quality control unit 3c. In this case, the image quality control unit 3c may perform the above “bright environment” / “dark environment” determination based on the acquired illuminance information of the ambient light. For example, when the illuminance stored in the illuminance information of the ambient light is a predetermined value or more, it may be determined as “bright environment”. Further, when the illuminance stored in the illuminance information of the ambient light is smaller than a predetermined value, it may be determined as “dark environment”.

  As described above, a plurality of types of examples have been described with respect to information serving as a determination criterion included in the in-vehicle information 21. However, a determination process in which a plurality of these pieces of information are combined may be performed. For example, if at least one of the above-mentioned multiple determination criteria indicates “dark environment” (or “bright environment”), the determination as “dark environment” (or “bright environment”) is confirmed. May be. Alternatively, a determination criterion of a predetermined number or more may indicate a “dark environment” (or “bright environment”), and determination of “dark environment” (or determination of “bright environment”) may be confirmed for the first time.

  Further, the discrimination result may be determined by using the information as the discrimination criterion included in the in-vehicle information 21 and the result of the environment estimation process based on the input video shown in the first embodiment. For example, when both the determination result based on the in-vehicle information 21 and the result of the environment estimation process based on the input video indicate “dark environment” (or “bright environment”), the determination as “dark environment” (or “bright environment” Determination) may be confirmed. For example, specifically, for example, the result of the environment estimation process based on the input video and the determination result based on the time information included in the in-vehicle information 21 may be combined for determination. Moreover, you may discriminate | determine combining the result of the environment estimation process based on an input image | video, and the discrimination | determination result by the lighting state information of the light (headlamp) contained in the vehicle interior information 21. FIG. Further, the determination may be made by combining the result of the environment estimation process based on the input video and the determination result by the illuminance information of the ambient light outside the vehicle acquired by the illuminance sensor 1411 included in the in-vehicle information 21.

  When the environment estimation unit 2 performs subdivided determinations such as “night”, “morning and evening”, “daytime (cloudy weather)”, and “daytime (fine weather)”, the estimation result, the contents of time information, and weather information If the contents match, the determination result may be confirmed.

  According to the video processing technique according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention described above, more suitable video display can be performed using information from the vehicle device.

  A configuration example of the fifth embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Reference numeral 1500 denotes a vehicle equipped with the system of the fifth embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 15, the camera unit 8 and the camera unit 8b are both installed in a direction to image the front (or rear if necessary) of the vehicle, and are configured to shoot two viewpoint images with parallax. . The distance estimation unit 22 is a distance estimation unit, and estimates a distance from the camera for each video area from two parallax images. As a method for estimating the distance from two parallax images, an existing technique may be used. The distance estimation result is input to the image quality control unit 3 and the image quality control unit 3b and used for image quality correction control of the video 9 and the video 9b. At that time, control is performed so that the contour correction amount is small for a region that is estimated to be a long distance in the video, and the contour correction amount is large for a region that is estimated to be a short distance in the video. According to this control, the outline of a close object can be sharpened, and the visibility of an object to be noted can be improved.

  According to the video processing technique according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention described above, a more preferable video display can be performed using the distance estimation result using the input video.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Image | video analysis part 1a Luminance component analysis part 1b Color component analysis part 1c Contour component analysis part 2 Environment estimation part 3 Image quality control part 4 Image quality correction part 4a Noise reduction part 4b Brightness correction part 4c Contour correction part 4d Color correction part 5 Image composition Unit 6 Video processing device 7 Display unit 8 Camera unit 9 Video 10 Video analysis result 11 Environment estimation result 12 Image quality control signal 13 Corrected video 14 Composite video 20 Difference analysis unit 21 Information signal 22 Distance estimation unit 100 Vehicle 1200 Vehicle 1300 Vehicle 1400 Vehicle 1411 Illuminance sensor 1412 Date and time information management unit 1413 Wiper operation state management unit 1414 Light lighting state management unit 1415 Wireless information acquisition unit 1416 Weather information management unit 1500 Vehicle

Claims (21)

  A video analysis unit that analyzes a signal component of an input video, an environment estimation unit that estimates a captured environment based on a video analysis result, and an image quality correction unit that corrects an input video based on the estimated environment The video processing apparatus is characterized in that the image quality correction unit corrects the input video according to an estimation result of the environment estimation unit.   The video processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the video analysis unit analyzes at least one piece of information among luminance information, color information, and edge information of the video for each frame.   The video processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the video analysis unit analyzes video information using a histogram.   The video processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image quality correction unit includes at least one correction function among a noise reduction function, a luminance correction function, a contour correction function, and a color correction function.   5. The video processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when the video analysis unit obtains a result of low video brightness, the image quality correction unit performs correction so as to increase the brightness.   The image analysis unit corrects the image quality correction unit to reduce the color component when a specific color component is larger than a predetermined value in the detection result of the color component of the image. The video processing device according to claim 1.   In the image analysis unit, when the edge amount is larger than a predetermined value in the detection result of the edge amount of the image, the image quality correction unit performs correction by a noise reduction function so as to suppress the edge component. The video processing device according to claim 1.   8. The video processing according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of environmental modes are provided as a result of estimating the environment of the input video, and the correction characteristics of the image quality correction unit are controlled according to the environmental mode. apparatus.   8. The video processing according to claim 1, wherein the correction characteristic of the image quality correction unit is controlled using at least one of time information, date information, and weather information in addition to the environment estimation result from the video. apparatus.   8. The correction characteristic of the image quality correction unit is controlled using at least one of the operation information of the car light and the operation information of the wiper in addition to the environment estimation result from the video. The video processing apparatus described in 1.   When at least two of the plurality of input images are parallax images, a distance estimation unit that estimates the distance of an object in the images from the two parallax images is provided, and the image quality correction unit is controlled based on the distance estimation result The video processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the video processing apparatus is a video processing apparatus.   When at least two of the plurality of input images are parallax images, a distance estimation unit that estimates the distance of an object in the images from the two parallax images is provided, and the image quality correction unit is controlled based on the distance estimation result 8. The control according to claim 1, wherein the control is performed such that the contour correction amount of the video region estimated to be near is larger than the video region estimated to be far away. Video processing device.   N (N is an integer greater than or equal to 1) video signals are input, N video analysis units for analyzing the components of these N video images, and a predetermined one analysis result among the N video analysis units. An environment estimation unit that estimates a captured environment, N image quality correction units that correct a video input based on the estimated environment, and a video display unit that displays a video. A video display apparatus, wherein a desired one of corrected videos is selected or displayed on a video display unit through video switching means for synthesizing and outputting N videos. N video signals (N is an integer equal to or greater than 1) are input, and a video analysis unit that analyzes a component of a predetermined video among the N video images, and an estimated environment based on the video analysis result And an N image quality correction unit that corrects the video, and a video switching unit that selects a desired one of the N image quality corrected videos or synthesizes and outputs the N videos. And a video display unit for displaying video,
The N image quality correction units perform video correction based on the environment estimated by the environment estimation unit. N video signals (N is an integer equal to or greater than 1) are input and shot based on a video analysis unit that analyzes the components of N video images and a predetermined video analysis result among the N video analysis units. An environment estimation unit for estimating the environment, (N-1) video difference analysis units for detecting a difference between the video component used for the environment estimation and other video components, and N for video correction An image quality correction unit, a video switching unit that selects a desired one of N video quality-corrected videos or synthesizes and outputs N videos, and a video display unit that displays a video,
The N image quality correction units correct the video used for the environment estimation based on the environment estimated by the environment estimation unit, and for other videos, the difference analysis between the estimated environment and the video difference analysis unit. An image display device, wherein correction is performed based on the result.   8. A video display device that further includes a display unit that displays the video processed by the image quality correction unit by the video processing device according to claim 1, and constitutes a video display device.   The video display according to any one of claims 13 to 16, wherein a plurality of environmental modes are provided as a result of estimating the environment of the input video, and the correction characteristics of the image quality correction unit are controlled according to the environmental modes. apparatus.   17. The correction characteristic of the image quality correction unit is controlled using at least one of time information, date information, and weather information in addition to the environment estimation result from the video. Video display device.   17. The correction characteristic of the image quality correction unit is controlled using at least one of the operation information of the vehicle light and the operation information of the wiper in addition to the environment estimation result from the video. The video display device described in 1.   When at least two of the plurality of input images are parallax images, a distance estimation unit that estimates the distance of an object in the images from the two parallax images is provided, and the image quality correction unit is controlled based on the distance estimation result The video display device according to claim 13, wherein the video display device is a video display device.   When at least two of the plurality of input images are parallax images, a distance estimation unit that estimates the distance of an object in the images from the two parallax images is provided, and the image quality correction unit is controlled based on the distance estimation result 17. The control according to claim 13, wherein control is performed such that the contour correction amount of the video region estimated to be near is larger than the video region estimated to be far away. Video display device.

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