JP3149462B2 - Eye camera - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an eye camera used for detecting eye movement in the fields of ergonomics and clinical medicine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In order to detect eye movements, an LED that emits infrared light is provided inside goggles worn on the face of a subject, an image of the subject's eyes is taken by an infrared camera, and the image signal is processed to process the eye signal. The movement is quantitatively captured, or the trajectory of the eye movement is displayed on a monitor television.

[0003]

Conventionally, since an infrared camera is arranged in front of an eye for imaging, the visual field of the subject is obstructed, and the eye movement is detected while giving visual stimulus by visible light. Or, it was not possible to detect the movement of the eyes while observing the outside scenery.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An eye camera according to the present invention is characterized by an infrared irradiating means, a hot half mirror which reflects infrared rays and transmits and reflects visible light, and emits light from the infrared irradiating means. An infrared camera that captures the subject's eyes with infrared light reflected by the hot half mirror, and captures an external view visually recognized by the subject via the hot half mirror with visible light reflected by the hot half mirror. A visible light camera, a trajectory representing the movement of the eyes captured by the infrared camera, and means for superimposing and displaying the outside scenery captured by the visible light camera, and the hot half mirror is provided in front of the eyes. The infrared camera and the visible light camera are arranged in a position that does not obstruct the subject's forward visual field.

[0006]

According to the structure of the present invention, the infrared light emitted from the infrared irradiation means is reflected by the mirror arranged in front of the eye, the reflected light is reflected by the eyes of the subject, and the reflected light is again reflected by the mirror. The light is reflected and enters the infrared camera. The infrared camera is positioned so as not to obstruct the subject's forward visual field, and the mirror placed in front of the subject's eyes transmits visible light. to go into. Thus, it is possible to detect the eye movement while giving a visual stimulus, or to detect the eye movement while observing the outside scenery. Further, by superimposing and displaying the trajectory representing the eye movement on the outside scene completely identical to the outside scene seen by the subject, it is possible to more accurately grasp the movement of the subject's eyes with respect to the outside scene.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, with reference to the drawings, a comparative example of the present invention will be described, and then an example will be described.

An eye camera 1 according to a first comparative example shown in FIG.
Is a LED 2 that emits infrared light, a known hot mirror 3 that reflects infrared light and transmits all visible light,
An infrared camera 5 having a CCD element for imaging the eye 4 with infrared rays emitted from the LED 2 and reflected by the hot mirror 3. Between the infrared camera 5 and the hot mirror 3, a filter 6 that transmits infrared light of a wavelength emitted from the LED 2 and blocks light of another wavelength is arranged. The eye camera 1 is held on a helmet worn by a subject, for example.

The hot mirror 3 is arranged in front of the subject's eye 4. The infrared camera 5 is disposed above the hot mirror 3 so as not to obstruct the front view of the subject. The LED 2 is arranged adjacent to the infrared camera 5. The tilt angle of the hot mirror 3 is such that the infrared light emitted from the LED 2 is reflected by the hot mirror 3 and enters the eye 4 of the subject, and the infrared light reflected by the eye 4 of the subject is reflected by the hot mirror 3 and the infrared light It is set so as to enter the camera 5. By arranging the filter 6 above and below the hot mirror 3 and the infrared camera 5, light other than the wavelength emitted from the LED 2 is prevented from being incident on the infrared camera 5. It is possible to detect the movement of the subject's eye 4 without being buried in noise.

[0010] The infrared camera 5 is connected to a monitor television 8 via an image processor 7. The image processor 7 and the monitor television 8 are publicly known, and the image processor 7 processes the imaging signal of the eye 4 by the infrared camera 5 so that the monitor television 8 causes the trajectory indicating the eye movement of the subject. Is displayed.

According to the eye camera 1 having the above configuration, the LED
The infrared rays emitted from 2 pass through the filter 6, are reflected by the hot mirror 3 and enter the subject's eyes 4, and are then reflected by the subject's eyes 4 and pass through the filter 6 to enter the infrared camera 5. I do. The infrared camera 5 takes an image of the subject's eye 4 with the incident infrared light, and the image signal is processed by the image processor 7 and sent to the monitor television 8. Thus, the monitor television 8 displays a trajectory representing the movement of the eye 4 of the subject.

The infrared camera 5 does not obstruct the visual field of the subject, and the hot mirror 3 disposed in front of the eye 4 transmits visible light. It is possible to detect the movement of the eyes while giving a stimulus, or to detect the movement of the eyes 4 while observing the outside scene ahead.

FIG. 2 relates to a second comparative example of the present invention, in which a visible light camera 9 for picking up an object to be viewed by a subject is arranged on an eye camera 1 having the same configuration as that of the first comparative example. The image signal from the visible light camera 9 is synthesized by a known synthesizer 10 with a signal obtained by processing the image signal from the infrared camera 5 by the image processor 7, and the synthesized signal is displayed as an image on the monitor television 8. As a result, the trajectory indicating the movement of the subject's eyes 4 is displayed on the monitor television 8 so as to overlap the outside scene substantially the same as the outside scene seen by the subject. The other configuration is the same as that of the first comparative example, and the same portions are denoted by the same reference numerals.

FIG. 3 relates to an embodiment of the present invention. The difference from the second comparative example shown in FIG. 2 is that a known hot half mirror 11 is used in place of the hot mirror 3, and a portion below the hot half mirror 11. Is that the visible light camera 9 is disposed. The hot half mirror 11 reflects infrared rays, transmits 50% of visible light, and reflects 50%. Thereby, the outside scene reflected by the hot half mirror 11 is imaged by the visible light camera 9, and the trajectory indicating the movement of the eye 4 is displayed on the monitor television 8 with the trajectory indicating the movement of the eye 4 superimposed on the outside scene completely seen by the subject. It is possible to more accurately grasp the movement of the subject's eye 4 with respect to the outside scene. Other parts are the same as those of the above-mentioned comparative example, and the same parts are denoted by the same reference numerals.

FIG. 4 relates to a third comparative example of the present invention. In each of the above-mentioned comparative examples and examples, the case of detecting the movement of a single eye is shown. In this comparative example, the movement of both eyes 4 is detected. The ones detected at the same time are shown. That is, it includes a pair of LEDs 2a and 2b that can emit infrared rays having different wavelengths, and a pair of hot mirrors 3a and 3b. The infrared camera 5 emits light from one of the LEDs 2a and receives one of the hot mirrors 3a.
Of the other eye 3a by the infrared ray reflected from the other hot mirror 3b while being illuminated from the other LED 2b while the infrared ray reflected by the
Is imaged. The image signal is processed by the image processor 7 in accordance with the wavelength difference, so that the trajectory representing the movement of one eye 4a and the trajectory representing the movement of the other eye 4b are simultaneously displayed on the monitor television 8. indicate. Other parts are the same as those of the above-mentioned comparative example, and the same parts are denoted by the same reference numerals.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment.

For example, in the above embodiment, an LED is used as the infrared irradiating means, but there is no particular limitation as long as it can irradiate infrared light.

Although the infrared camera 5 has a CCD element, the infrared camera 5 may have an image pickup tube. Further, although the infrared camera is arranged above the mirror, any position may be used as long as the position does not obstruct the subject's forward visual field.

[0019]

According to the eye camera of the present invention, it is possible to detect the eye movement while giving a visual stimulus, or to detect the eye movement while observing the outside scenery.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration explanatory view of an eye camera according to a first comparative example of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration explanatory view of an eye camera according to a second comparative example of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of an eye camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a configuration explanatory view of an eye camera according to a third comparative example of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 eye camera 2 LED 3 hot mirror 4 eyes 5 infrared camera

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A61B 3/113

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. An infrared irradiating means, a hot half mirror that reflects infrared light and transmits and reflects visible light, and a subject's eye that is emitted from the infrared irradiating means and reflected by the hot half mirror. An infrared camera that captures an image of the subject, a visible light camera that captures an external view visually recognized by the subject through the hot half mirror by the visible light reflected by the hot half mirror, and an eye movement that is captured by the infrared camera Means for superimposing and displaying a trajectory representing the trajectory and the outside scene imaged by the visible light camera, the hot half mirror is arranged in front of the eye, and the infrared camera and the visible light camera are arranged in the front view of the subject. An eye camera, wherein the eye camera is arranged at a position that does not obstruct the camera.