Image analysis – Applications – 3-d or stereo imaging analysis
Reexamination Certificate
1997-09-10
2003-04-15
Ahmed, Samir (Department: 2623)
Image analysis
Applications
3-d or stereo imaging analysis
C382S291000, C345S419000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06549650
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an image sensing apparatus including a multi-eye camera which acquires three-dimensional images and/or two-dimensional images of an object to display the acquired images and, more particularly, to providing panoramic view and/or stereoscopic view of images obtained by the image sensing apparatus.
The present invention also relates to a multi-eye image sensing method and apparatus which can panoramically or three-dimensionally display moving images with high image quality and high resolution.
As a conventional system for sensing and displaying three-dimensional pictures, for example, a three-dimensional television apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-21396 is known. In such image sensing/display system of three-dimensional images, basically, a pair of images having parallax are obtained from a plurality of cameras, and are displayed on a stereoscopic display dedicated to the system, thus presenting a three-dimensional image to a user.
In the above-mentioned three-dimensional image system, since cameras for sensing images and a stereoscopic display for displaying a three-dimensional image are separated, the user cannot stereoscopically observe the sensed images during image sensing and, hence, it is difficult to adjust the cameras to obtain an appropriate three-dimensional image while observing the monitor image. While sensing an image by moving the cameras, the stereoscopic display must be disconnected, and, then, editing of the sensed images by stereoscopically displaying them is required after image sensing. For this reason, image sensing of three-dimensional images is not easy. Conventionally, it is hard to observe a three-dimensional image by a simple method, either.
The conventional three-dimensional image system does not consider any compatibility with two-dimensional images which are popular in existing image sensing systems. More specifically, conventionally, since three- and two-dimensional image systems are discrete and independent, if one who has a two-dimensional image system wants to sense da three-dimensional image, he or she must build a three-dimensional image system, resulting in a heavy load on the person. Also, data of a three-dimensional image, computer graphics image, and the like created on a PC cannot be displayed on the camera side.
The present invention further relates to image sensing/image display for panoramic view and three-dimensional image sensing/display for stereoscopic view. Problems posed when moving images are sensed and displayed by a multi-eye system will be discussed below.
A multi-eye image sensing apparatus is conventionally applied to the image sensing/image display method for panoramic view and the three-dimensional image sensing/display method for stereoscopic view.
In the image sensing/image display method for panoramic view, an image is sensed via two, right and left image sensing optical systems, which are set so that their view points match each other using mirrors and the like. These image sensing optical systems are set or adjusted, so that two, right and left sensed images have overlap regions. A single panoramic synthesized image is formed by synthesizing the two, right and left obtained images so that their overlapping regions overlap each other, and the formed image is displayed on an image output apparatus such as a display.
On the other hand, in the three-dimensional image sensing/image display method for stereoscopic view, two image sensing optical systems are parallelly arranged at an interval given by a certain base distance, and an image is sensed from two view points. Since the average distance between the right and left eyes of a human being is about 65 mm, it is a common practice to set the base distance between the two image sensing optical systems at 65 mm in three-dimensional image sensing/image display for stereoscopic view.
When an image of the object of interest is sensed from the two, right and left view points, the object has different positions in images sensed by the individual image sensing systems. That is this difference is parallax, and when images having parallax (to be referred to as “parallax images” hereinafter) are stereoscopically viewed, the user can observe an image with sufficient stereoscopic expression.
A method of stereoscopically viewing parallax images obtained at two, right and left view points includes various methods.
One method is a shutter switching method in which the obtained parallax images for the right and left eyes are alternately displayed on the image region of a display (image output apparatus), and the user observes the displayed image via shutters. The user observes the parallax images via liquid crystal shutter spectacles having right and left shutters which can be independently switched. In the spectacles, since the shutters are switched in synchronism with the display switching timings of the right and left parallax images, the user can observe an image with sufficient stereoscopic expression.
Another display method is called a parallax barrier method. In this method, a stripe-pattern image formed by alternately arranging horizontal lines of two, right and left parallax images is displayed on a display apparatus having a polarization plate in which the direction of polarization changes every other horizontal lines. The pitch of lines of the polarization plate is equal to the line pitch of the stripe-pattern parallax image. When the stripe-pattern parallax image is displayed on the display apparatus, the polarization plate transmits only polarized light in one direction coming from the parallax image for the right eye sensed by the right image sensing optical system and only polarized light in a direction, different from the direction of polarization of the right image, coming from the parallax image for the left eye sensed by the left image sensing optical system.
On the other hand, the observer wears polarization spectacles, right and left eyepiece portions of which have a function of transmitting only the same polarized light components as those coming from the corresponding parallax images displayed on the display apparatus, so that the spectacles transmit only polarized light including the right parallax image for the right eye, and only polarized light including the left parallax image for the left eye. With the polarization spectacles, when the user observes the right parallax image with the right eye alone and the left parallax image with the left eye alone, he or she can observe an image with sufficient stereoscopic expression.
As described above, the three-dimensional image sensing/image display method for stereoscopic view uses the parallax of images sensed from different view points. That is, the user gazes the two parallax images having parallax so that images of the object of interest (to be referred to as a principal object hereinafter) in the individual parallax images overlap each other, i.e., the two parallax images are fused, thus experiencing stereoscopic expression.
In general, when the user undergoes stereoscopic view by fusing two parallax images having two, right and left view points with respect to the principal object, he or she can fuse the principal object images more easily as the parallax between the principal object images in the two parallax images is smaller.
Hence, the image sensing optical systems need be set to decrease the parallax between the principal object images upon image sensing. Conventionally, this problem is solved by:
(1) setting the image sensing optical systems to have a certain convergence angle; or
(2) parallelly displacing the image sensing optical systems.
FIG. 1
shows a case wherein the two image sensing optical systems are set to have no convergence angle, i.e., are set parallel to each other. In
FIG. 1
, two image sensing optical systems
6701
a
and
6701
b
are arranged parallel to each other at an interval given by a base distance Q to have an origin O
1
as the center, and respectively have lenses
6702
a
and
6702
b,
and CCDs
Iijima Katsumi
Ishikawa Motohiro
Kurahashi Sunao
Mori Katsuhiko
Sakimura Takeo
Ahmed Samir
Bali Vikkram
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