JPH0481090A - Coincident glance type figure image photographing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To miniaturize the above device and to display a picture with a wide view on a large screen by segmenting only the image of an observer among the observer image and a display screen image to be photographed through a half mirror. CONSTITUTION:A half mirror 2 is arranged in front of the display screen of a display device 1 so that the half mirror 2 can separate a display screen picture optical path 5 for the figure picture on a communicating party side projected on the display screen and an observer image optical path 6 for an observer 4 projected on the half mirror. The two inputs of an input video signal 7 to the display device 1 and an output video signal 8 from a photographing device (TV camera) 3 are inputted to a signal processor 9 for generating a differential signal so as to be outputted as an observer video signal 10 from the device to a communicating party side display device at a distant place. After the differential video is obtained, only the video of the observer is transmitted to the communicating party side at a suitable luminance level. Thus, it is not necessary to incline the half mirror almost at 45 deg., the device is miniaturized, and the video of the communicating party can be displayed with wide view on the large screen.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a line-of-sight matching type person image photographing device for photographing conference participants in a video conference, video telephone, etc. by aligning their sight lines.

(Prior Art) With the development of image communication technology, video conferencing systems and video telephone systems have been put into practical use that allow conferences and meetings to be held while viewing the facial image of a remote party. Video conferencing systems and video telephone systems require a photographic and display method that provides a natural, realistic feeling that does not make users aware of a teleconference, and that allows facial expressions to be read well. CR
The method of photographing people by aligning their lines of sight with each other through an image display device such as T is an effective means for realizing a system that is natural and realistic, and that can effectively read facial expressions.

However, to achieve line-of-sight alignment, the camera is
If the camera is installed in front of an image display device such as an RT, the camera will block the display screen of the display device, so in these current systems, the camera is installed above or beside the display device. As a result, a face image viewed diagonally from above or from the side is sent to the communication partner, and because both parties' eyes are facing an image display device such as a CRT, it is not possible to have meetings or meetings with the same line of sight. There wasn't.

In order to solve the above problems, a line-of-sight display/photographing device using a half mirror has been conventionally known as a method of installing a camera in the line of sight of the subject without blocking the display screen of the display device. It is being FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a display and photographing device using a half mirror.
2 is a display device, 2 is a half mirror 13 is a TV camera as a photographing device, and 4 is an observer. An observer 4 is observing the display device 1 through the half mirror 2. At the same time, the face of the observer 4 is photographed by the photographing device 3, so the line of sight of the observer 4 is directed toward the photographing device 3, and a face image with the same line of sight is transmitted to the communication partner.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) However, in the conventional line-of-sight-dispersion display photographing device described above, ■ In order to make the photographing device 3 invisible to the observer 4, it is placed in a box to block light from the outside. It must be stored and fixed, making the device large.

(2) If the arrangement angle of the half mirror 2 is made small, the display screen of the display device 1 will also be photographed by the photographing device 3, making it impossible to photograph only the human image.

■ In addition, when displaying images from a remote location, the viewer can experience a sense of realism, that is, the feeling that the other person is actually there.
One of the important requirements is to increase the size of the display screen.

Regarding this, Hatada and Sakata 9, ``Results of direction sense guidance based on screen size,'' Journal of the Television Society, Vol. 33,
No. 5, pp. 407 to 413, 1979, it was reported that the presence effect is very weak on a narrow display screen of 20 degrees or less, and becomes saturated when the screen is close to 80 degrees or more.

That is, it is necessary to increase the size of the display screen in a video conference, but the conventional photographing device shown in FIG. 5 has the following problems.

■ As the display screen becomes larger, half-mirror
is also large and is tilted at 45°, so the viewer 4 cannot get close to the screen and view it. Therefore, the viewing angle viewed by the viewer of the display screen cannot be increased, and the effect of realism is weak.

Due to the above-mentioned problems, the photographing device shown in FIG. 5 cannot display large-screen images, and the display screen lacks a sense of realism, so it has never been put to practical use.

(Object of the Invention) An object of the present invention is to provide a line-of-sight type human video photographing device that is capable of properly photographing a front image of an observer observing a display device, and is capable of displaying a large screen and a wide viewing angle. It's about doing.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above-mentioned problems and achieve the objects, the present invention provides a line-of-sight type person video photographing device for photographing a person observing a display screen of a display device, which provides a display of the display device. It is characterized by having at least a means for separating a screen image and an observer image, and a signal processing means for generating a difference signal between a video signal output from the photographing device and a video signal input to the display device. .

(Function) According to the present invention, a face image of a person at a remote location is displayed on a display screen of a display device, and an observer observes it through a half mirror. On the other hand, the image of the observer's face is reflected by the half mirror and photographed by the photographing device, and at the same time, the display screen of the display device is photographed via the half mirror. Then, the signal is input to the signal processing device as a signal in which the image of the observer and the facial image of the other person on the display screen are superimposed.

In this case, the signal processing device performs distortion correction on the other party's face image when the display screen is photographed from an oblique direction, except when the display screen is photographed in the form of a frontal image. On the other hand, the luminance level is set to be the same as the video signal of the other party superimposed on the output image of the photographing device, and the image of the other party is enlarged or reduced as necessary for alignment.

Then, after obtaining a differential image using a difference processing device between the video signal from the photographing device that has undergone the above processing and the input video signal to the display device, only the image of the observer is adjusted to an appropriate brightness level and sent to the other party. Transmit.

This eliminates the need to tilt the half mirror up to about 45 degrees, making it possible to reduce the size and display images of the other party on a large screen with a wide field of view. Furthermore, by replacing the display device with a large screen based on the above operation, images can be observed with a wide field of view, and the sense of realism of the displayed images can be further increased.

(Embodiment) FIG. 1 shows a configuration diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention, and the same parts as in FIG. 5 are given the same numbers. As shown in the figure, a half mirror 2 is arranged in front of the display screen of the display device 1, and a display screen image optical path 5 of the face image of the other party projected on the display screen and an observation image projected on the half mirror are provided. The observer image optical path 6 of the observer 4 is separated by a half mirror 2.

Further, two inputs, an input video signal 7 to the display device 1 and an output video signal 8 from the photographing device (TV camera) 3, are input to a signal processing device 9 that generates a difference signal, and is located at a remote location from the device. It is configured to be output as an observer video signal IO to the display device of the other party.

An example of the configuration of the signal processing device 9 is shown in FIG. The signal 8 systems each have a keystone distortion correction device 93. Two inputs of both video signals 7 and 8 are input to a difference processing device 94 that obtains a differential image, and the output thereof is input to a brightness amplification device 95.

The operation of the first embodiment based on the above configuration will be explained using video examples of the input video signal 7 system and the output video signal 8 system of the TV camera shown in FIG.

First, the input video signal 7 is transmitted to the display device 1 and the signal processing device 9.
is input, and the display device 1 displays the face image of the other party in the conference at a remote location on the display screen, and the observer 4 can observe the face image of the other party through the half mirror 2.

On the other hand, the image of the face of the observer 4 is reflected by the half mirror 2, passes through the observer image optical path 6, and is photographed by the TV camera 3. At the same time, the TV camera 3 also photographs the display screen image (the other party's face image) of the display device 1 through the half mirror 2 through the display screen image optical path 5, and the TV camera's image is superimposed on the image of the viewer's face. The signal is input as an output video signal 8 to a signal processing device 9 . By the way, apart from the case where the TV camera 3 is shooting from a direction completely perpendicular to the display screen of the display device 1, when shooting from an oblique direction as shown in FIG. 1, the output video signal 8 of the TV camera The superimposed video of the other party's face image is distorted into a trapezoid, as shown by the broken line in FIG. 3 81. This distortion is determined by the angle θ between the optical axis of the TV camera 3 and the display screen of the display device 1 shown in FIG. Therefore, this angle is measured in advance, the distortion is corrected in real time by the trapezoidal distortion correction device 93 shown in FIG.
After obtaining the trapezoidal distortion corrected image shown in FIG.
Enter into 4.

Further, a video 71 (see FIG. 3) of the input video signal 7 to the display device l, which is a video of the other party at a remote location, is input to the brightness reduction device 91 of FIG. 2 to obtain a brightness-reduced video 72. The brightness reduction at this time is performed to make the brightness level the same as that of the video signal of the other party which is superimposed on the output video signal 8 of the TV camera. This brightness-reduced image 72 is then input to a trimming device 92, which enlarges or reduces the image of the remote party, performs positioning, obtains a trimmed image 73 of a predetermined size, and inputs it to a difference processing device 94.

In order to obtain this trimmed image 73, specifically, the dimensional position of the other party's image superimposed on the trapezoidal distortion corrected image 82 is measured in advance from the shooting magnification of the TV camera 3 and the Wk shadow angle, and these values are also used. The trimming device 92 processes this in real time.

Next, the difference processing device 94 subtracts the trimmed image 73 from the trapezoidal distortion corrected image 82 to obtain a difference image 40 in which only the image of the observer 4 is shown. This differential image 40 is input to a brightness amplification device 95, which amplifies the observer's image to an appropriate brightness level, obtains an observer image signal IO, and transmits it to a remote party.

With the configuration as described above, according to the present invention, only the video portion of the viewer can be efficiently extracted from the video taken by the TV camera. Therefore, compared to conventional devices, there is no need to tilt the half mirror up to about 456 degrees with respect to the display screen, which allows the device to be made into a /J1 type, and the observer can bring his or her face close to the display screen, allowing for a large screen.・You can display the other party's image in a wide field of view.

Note that the signal processing device 9 has been described with respect to the minimum necessary dedicated hardware configuration in order to simplify the explanation.
It goes without saying that the same algorithm can be implemented using a general-purpose video processing device instead. for example,
Video processing device TI-1 from Image Technology, Inc., USA
In the 50 series, this can be realized by inputting the display device input video signal 7 and the TV camera input video signal 8 to two of the three video input terminals, respectively.

FIG. 4 shows a configuration diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention.
The same parts as in the figures are given the same numbers. As shown in the figure, a large screen 1a is placed diagonally in place of the display device 1, and a half mirror 2a is placed in front of it. Then, a TV projector 1b is arranged which projects onto the screen 1a from diagonally above where the observer 4 is located, and a half mirror 2b is placed in front of the TV projector 1b.
In addition, a full mirror 2C is installed in front of the TV camera of the photographing device 3.
This is a configuration in which these are arranged respectively.

In this embodiment, in order to realize a large-screen, high-brightness display, the TV projector lb projects the face image of the remote party on the screen la via the half mirrors 2a and 2b. The observer 4 then observes the other party's face image displayed on the screen la.

The TV camera 3 has half mirrors 2a and 2b.

The display image on the screen la projected through the full mirror 2c and the image of the observer 4 reflected by the half mirror 2a are superimposed and photographed, and the output video signal 8 of the TV camera is input to the signal processing device 9. In this signal processing device 9, T
The input video signal 7 input to the V projector 1b is also input, the signal processing described in FIG. 2 is performed, and only the video of the observer 4 is output to the other party as the viewer video signal IO.

In this embodiment, the size of the screen 1a is 120 inches, and the distance between the viewer 4 and the center of the screen is approximately 1.5 m.
And so. As a result, the viewer 4 can observe the image in a wide field of view with a viewing angle of about 80 degrees, so that the display image frame does not become a concern, thereby increasing the realism and impact of the displayed image. On the other hand, in conventional devices, when displaying on such a large screen, the half mirror protrudes from the display surface, making it impossible for the viewer to approach the screen surface and observe the display screen.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, the present invention can cut out only the observer image from the observer image photographed through the half mirror and the display screen image, so the angle of the half mirror with respect to the display screen is There are no restrictions and the device can be made smaller. Also,
There is no limit to the angle of the half mirror relative to the display screen.
Since it can be placed parallel to the display screen, the viewer can get close to the screen and observe it, allowing a large-screen, wide-field image to be displayed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of the first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of the first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the processing contents of the signal processing device in FIG. 2, FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of the configuration of a conventional line-of-sight/dispersion type display/photographing device. l...Display device, la...Screen, lb.
TV projector, 2.2a. 2b...Half mirror 2C...Full mirror 3...Photographing device (T~' camera), 4...Observer, 5.
...Display screen image optical path, 6...Observer image optical path, 7
... Input video signal to display device, 8 ... Output video signal of TV camera, 9 ... Signal processing device, IO
...observer video signal, 91 ...brightness reduction device, 9
2... Trimming device, 93... Keystone distortion correction device, 94... Difference processing device. 95... Brightness amplification device. Patent applicant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) In a line-of-sight type person video photographing device for photographing a person observing a display screen of a display device, there is provided a means for separating the display screen image of the display device and an observer image, and a means for separating the display screen image of the display device from the observer image; What is claimed is: 1. A line-of-sight type human video photographing device comprising at least a signal processing means for generating a difference signal between a video signal and a video signal input to a display device. (2) The line-of-sight matching type according to claim (1), wherein the means for separating the display screen image of the display device and the observer image is a half mirror arranged in front of the display screen of the display device. A person video shooting device. (3) The signal processing means for generating a difference signal between the video signal output from the photographing device and the video signal input to the display device reduces at least the brightness of the video signal input to the display device, and then Claim (1) characterized in that the video signal is input to and processed by a two-input, one-output video signal difference processing means.
The line-of-sight matching type person video shooting device described above. (4) The video signal output from the photographing device is corrected for keystone distortion if necessary, and the video signal input to the display device is reduced in brightness and then trimmed if necessary.
2. The line-of-sight matching type human video photographing device according to claim 1, wherein the video signal is input to and processed by an input and one output video signal difference processing means.