JPH04213416A - Camera for inputting line of sight - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To perform zooming photographing without operating a button by detecting the line of photographer's sight by a light of sight detecting means and deciding the viewing angle when the photographer looks at a photographic screen through a finder. CONSTITUTION:The camera is provided with the line of sight detecting means 2 for detecting the position of the line of the photographer's sight in the photographic screen, a zooming controlling means 1 for deciding a viewing angle for photographing based on the detected position of the line of sight, and for outputting a zooming signal corresponding to the viewing angle. And also the camera is provided with a zoom driving means 7 for driving a zooming lens based on the zooming signal. And, for example, observer's eyes are irradiated with infrared rays and then, the position of the line of sight is sampled from a reflected image from his cornea or his crystal lens at a prescribed time interval. And which the sampled position of the line of sight is concentrated to a specified area on the wide side of the photographic screen or a specified area on a tele-side is analized so as to decide the viewing angle. Then the need of operating a zooming button is eliminated, and the zooming lens can be moved to the viewing angle which is intended by the photographer only by looking through the finder.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a line-of-sight input camera that detects the line-of-sight position within a photographic screen and controls camera operation.

0002

[Prior Art] A zoom lens is a lens whose focal length can be changed continuously by moving a part of the lens component, without changing the screen position. It is also installed in cameras, etc. Conventional zoom lenses are driven by pressing the telephoto or wide-angle position of a zoom button provided on the camera body.

0003

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, with the conventional zoom lens described above, while looking through the viewfinder of the camera,
The angle of view is determined by the zoom button, which is cumbersome to operate and can lead to missed photo opportunities.

[0004] An object of the present invention is to provide a line-of-sight input camera that allows the zoom lens to be moved to the angle of view intended by the photographer by omitting operations using a zoom button and simply by removing the finder.

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems] A first solving means of a gaze input camera according to the present invention includes a gaze detection means for detecting the gaze position of a photographer in a shooting screen, and a gaze detection means detected by the gaze detection means. A zoom control means for determining a photographing angle of view based on the position and outputting a zooming signal corresponding to the photographing angle of view, and a zoom driving means for driving a zoom lens based on a zooming signal from the zoom control means. There is a structure.

In the second solution, the zoom control means samples the line-of-sight positions at predetermined intervals to obtain a distribution of line-of-sight positions, and when the distribution is concentrated in a designated telephoto area in the photographic screen, The configuration is such that it outputs a zooming signal that causes the lens to move toward the telephoto side, and when the focus is on a specified wide-angle area, to move the lens toward the wide-angle side.

In the third solution, the zoom control means samples the line-of-sight positions at predetermined intervals to obtain a distribution of line-of-sight positions, and when the distribution is concentrated in the central area of the photographic screen, the zoom control unit selects a telephoto lens. It is configured to output a zooming signal that causes the camera to move toward the wide-angle side when the focus is concentrated on the peripheral area.

[0008]

According to the first solution, when the photographer looks into the photographic screen, the line of sight detection means detects the line of sight and the zoom lens is immediately moved by the zoom driving means. Furthermore, according to the second solution, it is possible to select the designated telephoto area and the designated wide-angle area within the photographing screen using the line of sight, and set the photographing angle of view intended by the photographer. Furthermore, according to the third solution, the shooting angle of view can be set by analyzing the shooting intention of the photographer based on the position of the photographer's line of sight.

[0009]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings and the like. 1 to 3 are diagrams showing a first embodiment of a line-of-sight input camera according to the present invention, and FIG.
2 is a block diagram, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a photographing screen, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart explaining the operation.

The control means 1 is a CPU that controls the line-of-sight input camera of the present invention, and includes a line-of-sight detecting means 2, a distance measuring means 3,
It is a means for generating drive signals to the zoom drive means 7, etc. based on signals from the photometry means 4, the half-press switch 5, the release switch 6, etc., and the line of sight detection means 2 detects when the photographer's line of sight is on the shooting screen 8. For example, means for detecting the position of the gaze point by irradiating the observer's eye with infrared illumination light and detecting the position of the gaze point from the reflected image from the cornea or crystalline lens. , Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-274736
The device disclosed in the above publication) can be used.

The distance measuring means 3 measures the photographing distance to the subject within the photographing screen, and the obtained distance measurement information is output to the control means 1, where the amount of movement of the focusing lens is calculated. The photometry means 4 is a means for measuring the brightness of a subject within the photographic screen, and the obtained brightness information is output to the control means 1 to calculate an exposure value. The half-press switch 5 is turned on when a release button (not shown) is pressed halfway, and the release switch 6 is turned on when the release button is fully pressed. The zoom driving means 7 is the control means 1
This means moves a zoom lens (not shown) to the telephoto side or the wide-angle side based on a zooming signal from the camera. The line of sight detection area 8 corresponds to the shooting screen in the viewfinder,
A hatched wide-side specified area ZW consisting of a plurality of segments for detecting the line-of-sight position of the line-of-sight detection means 2
When the line of sight is focused on the zoom button, this corresponds to pushing the manual zoom button toward the wide-angle side, and when the line of sight is focused on the designated telephoto side region ZT, this corresponds to pushing the zoom button toward the telephoto side.

Next, the operation of the first embodiment will be explained with reference mainly to FIG. When the power is turned on and the line of sight zoom mode is selected using a mode selection switch (not shown) (step S100), it is determined whether the half-press switch 5 is on (step S101), and if it is on, the process advances to step S102. advance, and if off, half-press switch 5
Wait for it to be pressed.

[0013] When the timer starts counting in step S102, the line of sight detection means 2 detects the line of sight (step S103), and the line of sight position is detected at predetermined time intervals until a predetermined timer time elapses (step S104). sample. Analyze whether the sampled line-of-sight positions are concentrated in the wide-side specified area ZW or the tele-side specified area ZT of the photographing screen 8 (step S105).
If the viewing position is concentrated on the wide-angle side specified area ZW (step S106), the zoom driving means 7 drives the zoom lens toward the wide-angle side (step S107). Furthermore, if the line of sight is concentrated in the telephoto side designated area ZT (step S108), the zoom driving means 7 drives the zoom lens toward the telephoto side (step S109).

Next, in step S110, wait until the half-press switch 5 is turned on. If it is turned on, the distance measuring means 3 is made to measure the distance (step S111), and the photometer 4 is made to measure the light. (Step S112), the control means 1 sets photographing conditions based on these values. If the half-press switch 5 is not turned on, the process returns to step S101. When the release switch 6 is turned on, the control means 1
The shutter is released under the photographing conditions set by (step S114). If the shutter is not turned on, the process returns to step S110.

4 and 5 are diagrams showing a second embodiment of the line-of-sight input camera according to the present invention, in which FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a photographing screen, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart explaining the operation. . Note that since the circuit configuration (FIG. 1) is substantially the same as that of the first embodiment described above, illustration thereof will be omitted and the explanation will be centered on FIG. 5.

In the first embodiment, areas such as the tele designation area ZT and the wide designation area ZW are selected based on the line of sight, but in the second embodiment, the line of sight detection area 9 is
As shown in Figure 4, three areas, Area Z(1), Area Z(2), and Area Z(3), correspond to tele, middle, and wide, allowing the photographer to observe the subject naturally. It is designed to zoom according to the situation.

When the power is turned on and the line-of-sight zoom mode is selected using a mode selection switch (not shown) (step S
200), it is determined whether the half-press switch 5 is on or not (
Step S201), if on, step S202
If it is off, wait for the half-press switch 5 to be pressed.

Steps S202 to S205 are a routine for detecting which of the areas Z(1), Z(2), and Z(3) the photographer's line of sight is gazing at. The variable n set in step S202 represents the number of gaze detections, and is initially set to 0, and is set in step S203.
Assigns variable n+1 to variable n and increments it by 1,
In step S204, the data D1 of the first gaze position is
detection is performed. In this embodiment, the detection of the line of sight position is performed 100 times at 5 ms intervals, and as shown in step S205, until the variable n reaches 100, step S2
A routine from step S203 to step S205 is performed to sample 100 pieces of visual line position data, and when the variable n reaches 100, the process moves to step S206.

From step S207 to step S212, 100
data D1 to D100 are divided into three areas Z(1)
, Z(2), Z(3), each area is compared with a segment set in advance for area determination.
(2), the number of gazes N(I) of Z(3) is calculated. In step S206, the number of gazes N(I) is set, and its initial value is set to zero.

In step S207, the detected data Dn is compared with the segment within the area Z(1) and the n-th data Dn of the above-mentioned routine.
It is determined whether or not is located within the region Z(1). In step S207, data Dn is divided into area Z(1
), the process proceeds to step S208, where N(1)+1 is substituted for N(1), and the process proceeds to step S213, which will be described later.

Furthermore, step S209, step S21
1, a similar operation is performed to determine whether data Dn is located within regions Z(2) and Z(3), respectively. Then, the data Dn are respectively divided into areas Z(2) and
If it is determined that it belongs to one of Z(3), steps S210 and
Proceed to either step S212 and set N(2) to N(2).
)+1 and N(3)+1, respectively, and then the process advances to step S213.

In step S213, based on the sampled number of gazes N(1), N(2), N(3),
The focal length f for zooming is calculated using the following equation. f=f1 − [(1+k1 +k2)(N(1)+N
(2)+N(3))/32 -(N(3)+k2 N(
2)+k1 N(1))/3] ... Formula (1) However, f1; Focal length k1 at the beginning of the viewfinder
;Weighting coefficient k2 for region Z(1);Region Z(
The weighting coefficient for 2) is 1<k2<k1.

An example of calculating the value of f corresponding to a 35-70 mm zoom lens will now be described. In this example, in the above equation (1), f1 =50, k1 =2,
Calculations were made for the following eight cases with k2 = 1.5. This is a case where the (1) side mainly looks into the center, the (7) side mainly looks into the peripheral part, and the (4) looks almost evenly. Moreover, (8) corresponds to the case where the middle part is mainly looked into. N(1) N(2)
N(3) f(1) 10
0 0
0 66.7 (2) 70
20 10
60.0(3) 40
40 20
53.3 (4) 33 33
34 49.83
(5) 20 40
40 46.7 (6)
10 20
70 40.0(7) 0
0 100
33.3(8) 0
100 0
50.0

In step S214, the zoom driving means 7 drives the zoom lens based on the focal length f.

Next, in step S215, wait until the half-press switch 5 is turned on. If it is turned on, the distance measuring means 3 is made to measure the distance (step S216), and the photometer 4 is made to measure the light. (Step S217), the control means 1 sets photographing conditions based on these values. If the half-press switch 5 is not turned on, the process returns to step S201. When the release switch 6 is turned on, the control means 1
The shutter is released under the photographing conditions set by (step S219). If the shutter is not turned on, the process returns to step S215.

[0026]

[Effect of the invention] As explained in detail above, claims 1,
According to No. 2, when the photographer looks into the photographing screen, the line of sight detecting means detects the line of sight and drives the zoom lens, so zoom photography can be performed without bothersome button operations. Further, according to claim 3, since the amount of zooming is determined based on the natural line of sight of the photographer looking at the subject, it is possible to more easily set the angle of view intended by the photographer.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of a line-of-sight input camera according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a photographing screen of the first embodiment of the line-of-sight input camera according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the first embodiment of the line-of-sight input camera according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a photographing screen of a second embodiment of the line-of-sight input camera according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of a second embodiment of the line-of-sight input camera according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Control means 2 Line of sight detection means 3 Distance measurement means 4 Photometering means 5 Half-press switch 6 Release switch

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A line-of-sight detection means for detecting a line-of-sight position of a photographer in a photographic screen, a shooting angle of view based on the line-of-sight position detected by the line-of-sight detecting means, and zooming corresponding to the shooting angle of view. A line-of-sight input camera comprising a zoom control means for outputting a signal, and a zoom drive means for driving a zoom lens based on a zooming signal from the zoom control means. 2. The zoom control means samples the line-of-sight positions at predetermined intervals to obtain a distribution of line-of-sight positions, and when the distribution is concentrated in a specified telephoto area in the photographing screen, moves the line of sight to the telephoto side. 2. The line-of-sight input camera according to claim 1, wherein when the camera is concentrated on a designated wide-angle area, it outputs a zooming signal to move the camera toward a wide-angle side. 3. The zoom control means samples the line-of-sight positions at predetermined intervals to obtain a distribution of line-of-sight positions, and when the distribution is concentrated in a central area of the photographic screen, moves the line-of-sight position to the telephoto side; The line-of-sight input camera according to claim 1, wherein when the line-of-sight input camera is concentrated in a peripheral area, it outputs a zooming signal to move the camera toward a wide-angle side.