Television – Special applications – Observation of or from a specific location
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-07
2003-09-09
Vu, Ngoc-Yen (Department: 2612)
Television
Special applications
Observation of or from a specific location
C348S211600
Reexamination Certificate
active
06618075
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE ART
The present invention relates to a moving object shooting system, and is to be applicable to a shooting system for shooting a moving object, for example, such as a roller coaster or the like.
BACKGROUND ART
Recently, a system of shooting the appearance or the expression of the face of passengers who is getting on, in the middle of getting on a roller coaster, a water coaster or the like in an amusement park and selling a photograph by printing it to a person who wants it after the passengers got off, is developed and operated. In this system, for example, on a roller coaster equipment shown in
FIG. 1
, let trains
3
a
and
3
b
composed of plural coupled vehicles
2
a
to
2
f
run of which the wheels are held by rails
1
.
The passengers pass in front of a control house
4
(there is an operator who sells a ticket or the picture and operates a shooting system control unit
5
exists), go up a stairs
6
and going to a plat home
7
, and get on the roller coaster train
3
a
or
3
b.
Two trains
3
a
and
3
b
are composed of six vehicles in this example, and four seats are provided in each vehicle.
A shooting means
8
is disposed at a position suitable for shooting along the running path of the trains so that the focus is on the passengers of the vehicles. The shooting means
8
may be a still camera or a video camera, and here, it is described by taking a video camera for example. A vehicle detecting sensor
9
a
composed of an infrared sensor, etc., is disposed on the right of the video camera
8
, that is, the coming direction side of the trains to detect the head of a first vehicle
2
a.
Furthermore, a repeating strobe
10
(here, it is defined as 6 flashes) is disposed near the video camera
8
.
If the train closes to the shooting position, the head of the train interrupts the infrared rays of the vehicle detecting sensor
9
a,
so that the coming of the train is detected. The first flash of the repeating strobe
10
arises at a timing of that the first vehicle
2
a
entered the angle of the video camera
8
, a shutter disposed immediately before the video camera
8
opens and taking an image in, and then the second flash of the strobe
10
arises at a timing of that the second vehicle
2
b
entered the camera angle and shooting is performed similarly. Hereinafter, also the shooting of the third to the sixth vehicles
2
c
to
2
f
is performed similarly. Then, the images taken in by this shooting are sent to the system control unit
5
placed in the control house
4
and stored in a picture memory.
Note that, the video camera
8
, vehicle detecting sensor
9
a,
repeating strobe
10
are connected to the system control unit
5
by cables
11
a,
11
b
and
11
c
respectively, and transmit each output signal to the system control unit
5
as well as receiving a control signal from the system control unit
5
. Then, the pictures of the passengers shot for each vehicle are displayed on a display monitor
12
in which six monitor TVs are arranged, and the picture is printed and provided as the passenger requests it.
FIG. 2
is a block diagram showing the structures of a shooting section and a printing section. The system control unit
5
is provided with an interface section
13
, a controller
14
such as a CPU or the like, an RGB frame memory
15
a
for storing the pictures, a hard disk
15
b,
a camera control section
16
and a display timing controller
17
or the like.
The video camera
8
, vehicle detecting sensor
9
a,
repeating strobe
10
are connected to the interface section
13
by the cables
11
a
to
11
c
respectively, and the interface section
13
and the controller
14
are connected to each other by a signal bus. Thus, the controller
14
controls the video camera
8
, vehicle detecting sensor
9
a
and repeating strobe
10
via these interface section
13
and cables
11
a
to
11
c
respectively.
The RGB frame memory
15
a
is connected to the controller
14
to store the pictures taken in from the video camera
8
. The hard disk
15
b
is connected to the RGB frame memory
15
a
to ensure sufficient memory capacity for storing many pictures.
The display monitor
12
is connected to the display timing controller
17
, and the pictures of each vehicle read from the hard disk
15
b
are displayed on six monitor TVs
12
a
to
12
f
respectively.
Furthermore, three printers
19
are connected to the interface section
13
via a signal distributor
18
. Also, for example, a touch screen
20
is connected to the interface section
13
to specify one of the pictures and instruct its printing-out.
Then, as the passenger passes by in front of the display monitor
12
and finds the picture in which himself/herself comes out, he/her tells the operator the number of monitor TV displaying that picture. If the operator inputs the number of the picture of which order is received on the touch screen
20
, a print of the specified picture is printed out from the printer
19
.
By the way, in the shooting system having the above structure, a timing of cutting the shutter of the video camera
8
is computed and set from the running speed and the space of seats of the coaster on the basis of a signal obtained from the vehicle detecting sensor
9
a
for detecting the arrival of the train
3
a
or
3
b.
However, a running speed of each train changes by the effects of difference in the maintenance state of coaster, whether, temperature and humidity, so that the focus is to be out of the passengers and a part no passenger exists is shot, and a valueless picture is apt to be generated unfortunately.
As a reference, this relationship between the deviation of the center of camera angle (shot) and the speed of the train is shown in
FIGS. 6A
to
6
F. The length of the vehicle is defined as 5 m, and a predetermined shooting position is defined as the center of the vehicle.
FIG. 6B
is a state where a shutter opening timing is set so that the center of camera angle comes at the center of the first vehicle
2
a
in the case of a speed of 70 km/h, and this is defined as the predetermined shooting state.
FIG. 6A
shows a state where the camera angle deviates rightward from the center of the vehicle when the shutter opening timing is the same condition as the aforementioned case in the case of a speed of 75 km/h (the amount of deviation is 1.6 m).
FIG. 6C
shows a state where the camera angle deviates leftward from the center of the vehicle at 65 kilometer an hour and when the shutter opening timing is the same condition as the aforementioned case (the amount of deviation is 1.6 m).
FIG. 6E
is a state where the shutter opening timing is set so that the center of camera angle comes at the center of the second vehicle
2
b
in the case of a speed of 70 km/h, and this is defined as the predetermined shooting state.
FIG. 6D
shows a state where the camera angle deviates rightward from the center of the second vehicle
2
b
when the shutter opening timing is the same condition as the aforementioned case at 75 km/h (the amount of deviation is 1.97 m).
FIG. 6F
shows a state where the camera angle deviates leftward from the center of the second vehicle
2
b
when the shutter opening timing is the same condition as the aforementioned case at a speed of 65 km/h (the amount of deviation is 1.97 m). And, pictures with deviated camera angle which are shot in these states (a), (c), (d) and (f) become totally valueless things unfortunately.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
Considering the above points, in such shooting system of a moving object such as a roller coaster or the like, the present invention provides a shooting apparatus without a deviation at the center of camera angle (shooting) even if a speed of each part of the moving object changes.
To solve the above problems, in the present invention, a shooting means disposed at the optimal shooting position of a moving object along a running path of the moving object, a moving object detecting sensor disposed at the coming side of the moving object than the shooting device, a speed sensor for measuring the running speed of
Frommer William S.
Frommer & Lawrence & Haug LLP
Kessler Gordon
Rosendale Matthew L
Sony Corporation
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