Patent Application
20070153092
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a video camera apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a video camera apparatus for whole space monitoring.
2. Description of Related Art
In a monitoring system, the width of the monitored range and the instantaneity of the monitored images are two important factors for judging the performance of the monitoring system. To have wider monitored range and more instant monitored images is what various monitoring systems want to achieve.
In conventional monitoring systems, a single lens is generally used by the monitoring video camera product for monitoring a fixed angle, which will cause visual dead angles.
Accordingly, some products, which can monitor the whole space with single lens through optical design, are provided.
However, the curvatures of the big convex lens 104 and the small convex lens 110 have to be calculated accurately when the video camera apparatus as shown in
In addition, even though some video camera products can perform whole space monitoring through a rotating single lens, they can not monitor the whole space simultaneously due to the time difference. Thus, even the purpose of whole space monitoring is achieved, the area outside of the image captured by the video camera at a particular time does not fall within the monitored range. As a result, a dead angle is occurred because of time difference.
The conventional method of setting up a plurality of video cameras at different locations, as described above, is not economical because it has many disadvantages such as difficulties in amending the angles of the panoramic image, wasting of installation space, increasing the system construction cost. Besides, extra cost in cable installation is needed when setting up the system, resulting in the increase in maintenance expense of the monitoring cable at later management. While if a single lens is used for single angle asynchronous whole space monitoring, dead angles in time will be occurred that the monitoring instantaneity cannot be achieved.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to provide a video camera apparatus for whole space (a 3-D open visual space) monitoring, which can capture images with no dead angles in space or in time, and can reduce the difficulty in angle amendment of panoramic image combination, lower the costs in product manufacturing, installation, maintenance and the installation space.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a video camera lens module is provided, wherein a plurality of lenses are mounted on the rotating portion thereof to capture images from different directions.
To achieve the aforementioned and other objectives, the present invention provides a whole space monitoring video camera apparatus for transferring the captured images to the host apparatus. The whole space monitoring video camera apparatus includes a lens module having a plurality of lenses, a calculation unit, and a processing unit. The lens module captures images from different locations and produces a plurality of image data, then outputs the image data to the calculation unit. The calculation unit calculates the received image data and outputs the image data to the processing unit. The processing unit compresses the image data according to the output of the calculation unit and outputs the compressed image data to the host apparatus.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a whole space monitoring video camera apparatus is provided, which includes a lens module having a plurality of lenses, a first calculation unit, a processing unit, and a decoding device. Moreover, the decoding device further includes a second calculation unit and a decompressing unit. The lens module captures images from different locations and produces a plurality of image data, then outputs the image data to the calculation unit. The calculation unit calculates the received image data and outputs the image data to the processing unit. The processing unit compresses the image data according to the output of the calculation unit and outputs the compressed image data to the decoding device through a transmission interface.
The decoding device includes a second calculation unit and a decompressing unit. When the output of the calculation unit is sent to the decoding device, the second calculation unit. Next, the second calculation unit sorts out the image frames produced by different methods and outputs the result to the decompressing unit to be decompressed, so as to form a panoramic image eventually.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, a lens module is provided, which includes a fixing portion and a rotating portion. Wherein, a plurality of lenses can be mounted on the rotating portion, and the rotating portion can be attached to a bonding surface of the fixing portion rotationally.
According to the present invention, a lens module structure having a plurality of lenses is adopted and the lenses can capture images from different locations simultaneously to capture images of multiple angles, so as to monitor 360° half space or 3D whole space, therefore the captured images have no dead angle in space or in time. Moreover, since the plurality of lenses have been integrated into a lens module structure, the angle amendment in combining the panoramic image becomes easy. Furthermore, the extra cost in cable layout when installing the system and the expense in future maintenance can be avoided. Accordingly, the cost in product manufacturing and maintenance is reduced. In addition, the same system can be used in different monitored environments and to meet different monitoring requirements by integration with different image compressing and combination technologies, so as to further reduce the cost of redesigning the system.
In order to make the aforementioned and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention comprehensible, a preferred embodiment accompanied with figures is described in detail below.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
To reduce difficulty in angle amendment of panoramic image combination, avoid extra cost in cable installation when setting up the system, and to reduce product manufacturing and maintenance cost, the present invention provides a whole space monitoring video camera apparatus different from the conventional technology. The content thereof will be described with reference to the embodiments as shown in the accompanying figures.
Referring to
In the present embodiment, the processing unit 310 can combine and compress all the image data D1˜Dn according to the user's settings. In addition, the processing unit 310 can also combine and compress part of the image data D1˜Dn, or compress each of the image data D1˜Dn respectively, to produce image frames. Next, the processing unit 310 outputs the processed result to the host apparatus 312, so that the user can view the images captured by the lenses 306 through the host apparatus.
It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention is not only for transferring the captured images to the host apparatus 312. In actual application, the user can also control the video camera apparatus 302 through the host apparatus 312. The host apparatus 312 may be placed close to the video camera apparatus 302 by cable connection, or may be placed anywhere by wireless communication network, so that the user can change the shooting angle of the video camera through the host apparatus, or even require the video camera to enlarge a particular part of the image when an abnormity is found in this particular part of the captured image.
Similarly, the lens module 404 includes a plurality of lenses 406 which are used for capturing images from different angles and producing image data D1˜Dn. The outputs of the lenses 406 are coupled to the first calculation unit 408 to transfer the produced image data D1˜Dn to the first calculation unit 408. Wherein, the working principles of the first calculation unit 408 and the processing unit 410 can be referred to the working principles of the calculation unit 308 and the processing unit 310 in
In the present embodiment, the second calculation unit 504 divides various image frames according to the output of the first calculation unit 408. The various image frames described above are produced by combining and compressing all the image data D1˜Dn, or produced by combining and compressing part of the image data D1˜Dn, or produced by compressing individual image data D1˜Dn. As described above, the second calculation unit 504 sorts out the image frames produced by different methods and outputs the result to the decompressing unit 506 to be decompressed, so as to form the panoramic image eventually.
The lens modules (304, 404) in the embodiments described above can be implemented as a dual-lenses module of a whole space monitoring video camera apparatus illustrated in
The embodiment as shown in
When the lens module has more than 3 lenses, the scene of a half space can be covered. Referring to the side view of the half space lens module in a whole space monitoring video camera apparatus illustrated in
Two half space lens modules can be integrated into a whole space lens module by those skilled with the technology illustrated in
Wherein, all the first lenses 1006 are mounted on the first rotating portion 1004. The first rotating portion 1004 is attached on the first bonding surface 1008 of the first fixing portion 1002 while all the second lenses 1018 are mounted on the second rotating portion 1016. The second rotating portion 1016 is attached on the third bonding surface 1020 of the second fixing portion 1014. The second bonding surface 1010 of the first fixing portion 1002 is linked to the fourth bonding surface 1022 of the second fixing portion 1014, thus, two half space lens modules can be integrated into a spherical whole space lens module. Then, the hanging line 1024 is installed on the second rotating portion 1016 according to the actual length required and is fixed to the fixing spot 1012, so that the first lens module can capture images from the lower half of a space and the second lens module can capture images from the upper half of the space. Wherein, the hanging line 1024 can be a rope or pipe of any material that can sustain the weight of the whole space lens module. The fixing spot 1012 is any surface whereon the hanging line 1024 can be fixed. Moreover, the user can set a first predetermined angle and a second predetermined angle according to the actual requirement, and configure the first lenses and the second lenses according to the first predetermined angle and the second predetermined angle. Besides, the user can also set the first predetermined angle to be identical with the second predetermined angle, thus the number of the first lenses is the same as the number of the second lenses. Accordingly, processing the image data becomes easier.
The half space and whole space lens modules as described above can be integrated and applied to any space according to particular requirement the user wants to monitor. For example, a double lenses module can be used in an L-shape hallway or a straight hallway, scene of two directions can be monitored since the viewing angles of the two lenses can be adjusted randomly. And, for example, a triple lenses module can be hung in a close space such as a hall or a room, and the viewing angles of the three lenses can be adjusted to 120° respectively, so that the total of the three viewing angles is equal to 360°, thus monitoring the panoramic image can be achieved and no dead angles at any direction will be occurred. Furthermore, for example, two triple lenses modules can be combined into a spherical whole space lens module, which can be hung in a large open space such as the lobby of a hotel, a banquet hall, or a shopping mall, so that a whole space image combined by two half space images captured can be monitored.
In overview, according to the whole space monitoring video camera apparatus provided by the present invention, not only the angle amendment of the panoramic image combination is made easier, but the installation space and the product manufacturing cost are also reduced. Especially, there will be no dead angles in space or in time caused in the conventional structure. Moreover, the additional layout cost required when setting up the system and the expense of future maintenance can be saved, so that the economic efficiency of the video camera apparatus is improved.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present invention cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
