Television – Special applications – Hazardous or inaccessible
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-02
2001-07-10
Le, Vu (Department: 2613)
Television
Special applications
Hazardous or inaccessible
C073S865800
Reexamination Certificate
active
06259474
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a method for recording/reproduction by a recording/reproducing system for a visual inspection device. This invention is so designed that the recording/reproducing system for a visual inspection device can be produced at a low cost, and the time required for inspection can be shortened.
FIG. 7
shows the construction of a conventional tunnel wall surface inspection device. This tunnel wall surface inspection device is intended to perform the surface inspection of a long structure, such as a tunnel wall surface, with a high accuracy (a fine image resolving power).
As shown in
FIG. 7
, a line sensor camera
02
is installed on a vehicle
01
of the tunnel wall surface inspection device. The line sensor camera
02
shoots a tunnel wall surface T when the vehicle
01
is traveling. With the line sensor camera
02
, single shooting gives an image only as one line (line image). However, the line sensor camera
02
takes pictures continuously while moving in a direction perpendicular to the direction of arrangement of pixels of the line sensor camera
02
. By arranging the resulting line images in the moving direction of the line sensor camera
02
, a plane image elongated in a band form in the moving direction can be obtained. Thus, the use of the line sensor camera
02
enables images to be shot with a fine image resolving power.
The vehicle
01
is also equipped with an odometer
03
, which measures a distance traveled by the vehicle
01
. Data on the traveled distance detected is recorded so as to overlap at the front of the line image data.
A recording system
04
is also mounted on the vehicle
01
. The recording system
04
is composed of an A/D converter
05
, a hard disk
06
, and an MO recording unit
07
.
The line image (overlappedby the traveled distance data; the same will hold in the following description) obtained by the line sensor camera
02
is converted by the A/D converter O
5
from an analog signal to a digital signal, and stored in the hard disk
06
. When the distance inspected is long, the amount of the image data is so huge that the capacity of the hard disk
06
needs to be large. The image data stored in the hard disk
06
is transferred to an MO disk
08
by the MO recording unit
07
, where necessary.
At a place apart from the spot of inspection (the site where the tunnel wall surface inspection device is running), e.g., at a laboratory, an MO reproducing apparatus
09
and an image processor
010
are disposed. Thus, the image data are transferred from the hard disk
06
to the MO disk
08
on the spot of inspection. The MO disk
08
having records of the transferred data is carried from the spot of inspection to the laboratory or the like, where the image data are reproduced by the MO reproducing apparatus
09
. The reproduced data are processed by the image processor
010
, thus permitting the state of the tunnel wall surface T to be inspected and observed as images.
With the foregoing earlier technology, however, when the distance inspected is long, an immense capacity is needed for the hard disk
06
. This makes the hard disk
06
expensive, eventually making the price of the entire device very high.
If the acquired data is carried around, it is necessary to transfer the image data from the hard disk
06
to a recording medium such as the MO disk
08
. The transfer and carriage require several times the duration of measurement, causing inconvenience.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been accomplished in the light of the earlier technology. An object of this invention is to provide a recording/reproducing system for use in a visual inspection device, the system being producible at a low cost, and being capable of shortening the period of time required for inspection; and to provide a method for recording/reproduction by the recording/reproducing system.
An aspect of the present invention for attaining the above object comprises:
a line sensor camera moving, relative to an object to be inspected, in a moving direction intersecting a direction of arrangement of pixels, while shooting the object to be inspected, and outputting a line image;
an accumulator for successively accumulating respective line images, each of which extends in the direction of arrangement of pixels, so as to be sequentially arranged in the moving direction;
a controller for performing control such that whenever line images corresponding to lines of one frame by an image recording unit are accumulated in the accumulator in a state arranged in the moving direction, the accumulated images are divided, in the direction of arrangement of pixels, by a number which is obtained by dividing the number of pixels of the line sensor camera by the number of pixels of one frame of the image recording unit, and plane images obtained by division are outputted from the accumulator;
a signal converter for converting the plane images, which have been obtained by division, sequentially and chronologically into image signals for the image recording unit; and
the image recording unit for recording the image signals for the image recording unit, which have been obtained by conversion, onto an image recording medium.
Another aspect of the present invention comprises:
causing a line sensor camera to move, relative to an object to be inspected, in a moving direction intersecting a direction of arrangement of pixels, while shooting the object to be inspected, and to output a line image;
successively accumulating respective line images, each of which extends in the direction of arrangement of pixels, so as to be sequentially arranged in the moving direction;
whenever line images corresponding to lines of one frame by an image recording unit are accumulated in a state arranged in the moving direction, dividing these accumulated image, in the direction of arrangement of pixels, by a number which is obtained by dividing the number of pixels of the line sensor camera by the number of pixels of one frame of the image recording unit, and converting plane images, which have been obtained by division, sequentially and chronologically into image signals for the image recording unit; and
recording the image signals for the image recording unit, which have been obtained by conversion, onto an image recording medium by the image recording unit.
Still another aspect of the present invention comprises:
a line sensor camera moving, relative to an object to be inspected, in a moving direction intersecting a direction of arrangement of pixels, while shooting the object to be inspected, and outputting a line image;
an accumulator for successively accumulating respective line images, each of which extends in the direction of arrangement of pixels, so as to be sequentially arranged in the moving direction;
a moving distance meter for detecting a distance over which the line sensor camera has relatively moved, and outputting a moving distance integrated value;
a recording control unit for performing control such that whenever line images corresponding to lines of one frame by an image recording unit are accumulated in the accumulator in a state arranged in the moving direction, the accumulated images are divided, in the direction of arrangement of pixels, by a number which is obtained by dividing the number of pixels of the line sensor camera by the number of pixels of one frame of the image recording unit, and plane images obtained by division are outputted from the accumulator so as to be divided into a plurality of groups, and such that a code automatically assigned to each frame when an image signal for the image recording unit is recorded by the image recording unit onto an image recording medium is related to the moving distance integrated value, and the related code and moving distance integrated value are recorded in a relating recording medium by a relating recording unit;
a plurality of signal converters for converting the plane images in the respective groups, which have been obtained by division, sequentially and chronologically into image signal
Le Vu
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.
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