JP2983119B2 - 3D image system - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a stereoscopic video system. More specifically, the present invention relates to a three-dimensional video system which can be viewed with the naked eye without special polarized glasses and performs video signal processing of only the outline of an image, thereby shortening the signal processing time.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, methods for obtaining a stereoscopic image include a binocular parallax stereoscopic method using the principle of stereogram and a three-dimensional spatial image reproducing method using the principle of holography. The former is a method in which images of the same object from different positions are given to each of the left and right eyes. The latter reproduces the same light as the light around the subject and does not cause eye fatigue. However, there are still many research issues such as imaging methods and application to moving screens.

[0003] The binocular parallax stereoscopic method further includes a method of using glasses such as a stereoscopic video glasses system, a polarizing glasses system, a two-color glasses system, a right-and-left density difference glasses system, and a method that does not require glasses such as a rotating mirror 360-degree stereoscopic image. There is. In the method using stereoscopic video glasses, a video camera is installed on the left and right front of the subject, and the right and left images are displayed alternately for each field of the TV screen, while viewing this image as a stereoscopic image. Is transmitted through stereoscopic video glasses that alternately shield the right eye and the left eye in synchronization with the video, and the displayed right video is viewed with the right eye, and the left video is viewed with the left eye.

[0004] Three-dimensional aerial image reproduction methods include a method of superimposing a large number of planes, such as a varifocal mirror method and a refractive index change method.
There are methods for creating virtual images (wavefronts) such as holography and holographic stereograms, and methods for creating real images such as integral holography and solid-state three-dimensional display.

[0005]

In the conventional method of binocular parallax stereoscopic effect, which is generally used, by setting special polarized glasses close to the viewer's eyeball, a method of obtaining a stereoscopic image has been proposed. There are problems such as annoyance due to wearing and eyestrain caused by long viewing time.

In addition, stereoscopic video glasses require a high-speed optical switch that sufficiently follows the right and left images every 1/60 second (one field), and the optical switch of a liquid crystal cell has a slow response speed. There is a problem.

In order to solve such a problem, a three-dimensional display panel is driven by using three-dimensional information of x, y, and z coordinates by a camera, so that a large number of people can view a three-dimensional image from any direction. A possible stereoscopic video system is being studied. However, in order to obtain a stereoscopic image, it is necessary to perform arithmetic processing on a video signal corresponding to the cross-sectional area of the subject. For this purpose, the scale of a necessary circuit such as an arithmetic circuit for calculating the projection of a three-dimensional system onto a two-dimensional plane is large, causing an increase in cost and an increase in processing speed.

The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and a plurality of viewers can obtain a clear three-dimensional image at the same time without wearing polarizing glasses.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a stereoscopic video system capable of reducing the circuit scale, reducing the cost, and performing high-speed processing.

[0009]

According to the present invention, there is provided a stereoscopic image system comprising: a camera for identifying an image of a subject as an electric signal;
A control circuit for converting the electric signal identified by the camera into a three-dimensional video signal of x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis components; and a coordinate conversion circuit for generating cross-sectional image data at an arbitrary position of the subject from the three-dimensional video signal. The contour is shifted from the cross-sectional image data in at least two directions of the x-axis and the y-axis to calculate the x-coordinate and y of the contour of the subject.
A signal processing circuit for converting a coordinate and a z-coordinate into a three-dimensional control signal, a three-dimensional display panel having three-dimensional pixels and displaying a three-dimensional image, and x, y, z coordinate components from the signal processing circuit
, The x-axis, the y-axis, and the
And a driver circuit for driving each of the z-axis .

[0010]

According to the three-dimensional image system of the present invention, the camera identifies three-dimensional information of the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of the subject, and reproduces a three-dimensional image on a three-dimensional display panel based on the three-dimensional information. Therefore, it is not necessary to wear polarized glasses, and it is possible to easily supply a clear, real-world high-quality stereoscopic image.

In addition, since the cross section of the object is sent to the driver circuit after the contour line is erased and the inside is erased, and the driving process is performed, it is not necessary to perform the coordinate processing inside the three-dimensional object, so that the calculation process is reduced. , The circuit scale is reduced,
High-speed processing is performed.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, a stereoscopic video system according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory view showing one embodiment of the stereoscopic video system of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a subject, and a camera 2
Thus, the image of the subject 1 is identified as an electric signal. The electric signal of the identified image is converted by the control circuit 3 into x
A three-dimensional image signal of the axis, y-axis, and z-axis components is received, and the coordinate conversion circuit 7 creates cross-sectional image data at an arbitrary position from the image signal. The cross-sectional image data is processed by the signal processing circuit 8 to slightly shift in the x-axis direction to eliminate overlapping portions, thereby forming an x-axis contour, and similarly, slightly shifting in the y-axis direction to remove overlapping portions. Then y
An axial outline is created, and the x-axis outline and the y-axis outline are combined to create an outline of an arbitrary cross section on the xy plane. The position of the contour portion is converted into a three-dimensional control signal of x coordinate, y coordinate, and z coordinate, and the signal of x, y, z coordinate components transmitted from the signal processing circuit 8 is received by the driver circuit 5, A stereoscopic display panel (three panels in this embodiment) 4 is driven.

In FIG. 1, a portion A is a camera portion, and a portion B is a stereoscopic video apparatus. First, the camera unit A will be described in detail.

The camera section A includes one or more cameras 2
, A control circuit 3, a coordinate conversion circuit 7 for creating a contour portion of the image, and a signal processing circuit 8, which correspond to the x, y, and z coordinates of the x, y, and z coordinates of the contour portion of the image of the subject. This is the part that codes the color information. It is preferable to use two cameras because depth information, which is the depth of the subject 1, can be easily obtained. In this way, by obtaining the x-coordinate, y-coordinate, and z-coordinate components in the depth direction as the position information of the contour portion of the subject 1, z represents the depth in the conventional two-dimensional information including only the x-coordinate and y-coordinate. A feature of the present invention resides in that a coordinate component is added to obtain three-dimensional information, and a three-dimensional image is displayed without performing arithmetic processing such as calculation of coordinates in a three-dimensional image.

The camera 2 includes a lens optical system such as a convex lens for forming an image from a subject on an image receiving element, and an image receiving element for converting an image from the lens optical system into an electric signal. ing.

As the image receiving device, a charge coupled device (hereinafter referred to as CCD) or a charge injection device (hereinafter referred to as CI) is usually used.
D) is used, but other solid-state photosensitive elements such as MOS image sensors and image pickup tubes can also be used.

In this case, the CCD or CID can collectively obtain the image information as an electric signal. In the case of an image pickup tube or the like, however, it is necessary to convert the information of the electric signal into a display panel at a display circuit as described later. There is.

Next, a method for creating each coordinate information of the outline portion of the image from the image received by the camera 2 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a contour extraction process in the signal operation processing system incorporated in the stereoscopic video system of the present invention.

As is conventionally performed, the cross-sectional image data is obtained by, for example, using a coordinate conversion circuit 7 to obtain a point p on a three-dimensional system.
It is obtained by projecting (x, y, z) on the xy plane to obtain an orthographic projection of the three-dimensional object.

It is assumed that the orthogonal projection is a circle having a diameter D as shown in FIG. The coordinate information of the contour is obtained from the cross-sectional image by using, for example, a signal processing circuit 8 as shown in a block diagram in FIG. First, a parallel movement is performed in the x-axis direction by the signal processing unit indicated by F in FIG. 3 as shown in FIG. 2B. The minimum moving distance is α, and the number of slice images to be obtained is n. α
Is suitably about 5 to 10% of the diameter D, and n is suitably about 3 to 5 pieces. The smaller α and n are, the clearer and sharper the stereoscopic image can be obtained. However, if α and n are too small, it is necessary to calculate the cross-sectional image data for many z-coordinates, which undesirably increases the processing time.

Generally, three-dimensional coordinates (x, y, z) are represented by x
The operation of performing parallel translation by Tx in the direction, Ty in the y direction, and Tz in the z direction is performed using homogeneous coordinates [Wx,
Wy, Wz, W] and a 4-by-4 transformation matrix,

[0023]

(Equation 1)

Can be expressed as follows.

In this case, a cross-sectional image obtained by translating the original cross-sectional image as shown in FIG. 2A in the x-axis direction by α, 2α, 3α,. Tz
= 0, Tx = α, 2α,..., Nα, n are obtained, and they are superimposed as shown in FIG. Then, only the signal of the overlapping portion is read by the video signal synthesizing section indicated by G in FIG. 3 and the signal is passed to the driver circuit and erased. As a result, a contour of a hatched portion having a width of nα in the x-axis direction appears.

When the same operation is performed in the y-axis direction as shown in FIG. 2C, a contour having a width of nα in the y-axis direction is obtained. FIG. 2D shows a composite of these two images, which is a contour having a width of nα.

Here, the parallel movement of the x-axis and the y-axis in the positive direction has been described as an example, but the movement may be in the negative direction. In this case, Ty = Tz = 0, Tx = −α, −2 using a transformation matrix representing parallel movement.
α,..., −nα. Moreover, you may move in parallel to both sides of a positive direction and a negative direction. For example, if n is an odd number (including the original cross-sectional image) and it is translated by a distance equal to both positive and negative on the x-axis,

[0028]

(Equation 2)

[0029]

The control signals for the x, y, and z coordinates of the contour portion of the image thus calculated are transmitted to the driver circuit 5.

The video apparatus B has a light emitting section, and a three-dimensional display panel 4 for displaying a three-dimensional image, and a three-dimensional display for displaying an image of the subject 1 on the three-dimensional display panel 4 by a signal from the signal processing circuit 8. And a driver circuit 5 for driving each pixel or light emitting source of the panel 4.

As shown in FIG. 1, for example, as shown in FIG. 1, a three-dimensional display panel is obtained by superposing a plurality of liquid crystal display panels in a rearward direction (z-axis direction) with respect to a display surface and by setting the x coordinate and y of the display panel according to the z coordinate. Pixels corresponding to the coordinates are displayed, or a plurality of liquid crystal display panels are overlapped in the vertical direction (y-axis direction) so that an image can be viewed from the side of the liquid crystal display panel, and display according to the y coordinates is performed. Pixels corresponding to the x-coordinate and z-coordinate of the panel are displayed, or pixels where xz-coordinates and yz-coordinates intersect are displayed by opposing matrix-shaped electrodes disposed on the upper, lower, left and right sides of the liquid crystal block. You can do so.

The three-dimensional display panel is not limited to a liquid crystal display, but may be used by superposing flat display panels such as an electro-chemical display and an electrophoretic display. It may be provided to adjust the location where the image is formed.

Since it is necessary to extract an arbitrary pixel and apply a voltage between the opposing electrodes to the three-dimensional display panel 4, the x-axis,
A scanning signal is applied to each of the y-axis and the z-axis, and only pixels corresponding to the x-, y-, and z-coordinates from the camera unit are turned on.
N.

The driver circuit 5 includes drive circuits for the x, y, and z directions, respectively, and transmits control signals for x, y, and z coordinates and color information sent from the signal processing circuit 8 to the driver circuit 5. , The voltage is enlarged and converted to a displayable value. A driving element such as a thin film transistor of each pixel or a color light source is provided so that a voltage is applied to a corresponding pixel of the stereoscopic display panel based on the expanded control signal, and a color light source is driven in the case of color display. Is turned on to operate. This driver circuit 5 can also be driven by a circuit similar to that for a conventional two-dimensional image.

In the case of monochrome display, a light source can be provided by a common backlight as in a normal liquid crystal display. However, for each pixel based on xy coordinates,
For example, LED, laser light, etc., for example, red,
By arranging the three primary colors of green and blue and simultaneously driving the light sources, color display can be performed. In addition to the display by the transmitted light of the light source arranged on the rear surface of the three-dimensional display panel, the light from the light emitting source arranged on the viewer side is reflected by the display panel, so that when the display screen is viewed with the reflected light. Also, for example, light is reflected by the inverted pixels of the liquid crystal layer, and light is transmitted by the liquid crystal layer that is not inverted, so that a stereoscopic image can be obtained. In this case, three colors of red, green, and blue are used as the light source arranged on the viewer side, and a color image by reflected light can be obtained by synchronizing with the information of the x, y, and z coordinates that are the position coordinates. it can.

In this embodiment, the signal operation processing system is incorporated in the camera section A, but may be incorporated in the stereoscopic video apparatus B. However, in order to reduce the circuit scale, the camera unit A
It is more effective to incorporate it into

[0038]

According to the present invention, three-dimensional information of a subject is converted into a video signal, and each pixel of the three-dimensional display panel is passed through a control circuit, a signal processing circuit for obtaining a control signal for only the contour of the subject, and a driver circuit. And driving the light-emitting source, etc., the calculation processing of the stereoscopic video is performed in a short time with a small circuit with a simple circuit scale, and as a result, a clear stereoscopic video close to nature can be obtained, and even for moving images with high speed. You can watch it three-dimensionally.

In the present invention, polarized glasses are not required,
Virtual reality, 3D TV, 3D PC,
Video equipment and CAD equipment such as 3D workstations,
The present invention can be applied to a movie, an operation display device of a spacecraft, a ship, an airplane, and the like, a simulator, and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration explanatory view showing one embodiment of a stereoscopic video system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a signal operation processing system for obtaining an outline of a subject in the stereoscopic video system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram showing one embodiment of a signal processing circuit of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 subject 2 camera 3 control circuit 4 stereoscopic display panel 5 driver circuit 7 coordinate conversion circuit 8 signal processing circuit A camera section B stereoscopic image device

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A camera for identifying an image of a subject as an electric signal, and an electric signal identified by the camera on an x-axis and a y-axis.
Axis, a control circuit that makes a three-dimensional video signal of a z-axis component, a coordinate conversion circuit that creates cross-sectional video data at an arbitrary position of the subject from the three-dimensional video signal, 2 on the y-axis
A signal processing circuit that converts the direction to a three-dimensional control signal of the x-coordinate, y-coordinate, and z-coordinate of the contour of the subject by performing arithmetic processing, a three-dimensional display panel having three-dimensional pixels and displaying a three-dimensional image, X, y, from the signal processing circuit
By the control signal of the z coordinate component , x of the stereoscopic display panel is
A stereoscopic video system comprising a driver circuit for driving each of the axis, y-axis, and z-axis .