Image analysis – Applications – Motion or velocity measuring
Patent
1994-06-10
1998-06-09
Johns, Andrew W.
Image analysis
Applications
Motion or velocity measuring
382285, 382291, 354402, G06K 900, G06K 936, G06K 932, G03B 1318
Patent
active
057647860
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a National Phase application of PCT Application No. JP 94/00934 filed Jun. 10, 1994.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is used for measuring moving objects. Especially, it is related to the component for quickly calculating the coordinate of the captured moving object.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a means to measure characteristics of moving objects, images of the moving objects have been captured and processed as an image signal. In this way, moving objects have to be always captured within a screen. Therefore, the following methods have been employed,
(1) When the moving object moves in a wide range, the object is measured by placing the moving object in the angle of view of the capturing device using a wide angle lens.
(2) The moving object is measured while placing the moving object in the angle of view of the capturing device by restricting the movement of the moving object.
(3) Putting the capturing device on a universal head equipped with an angle-encoder, tracking the moving object while moving the universal head manually, and calculating the coordinate of the moving object for every frame by digitizing, etc. using the recorded images and the angles of the universal head.
Also, the characteristics of the moving object have been obtained by measuring the two-dimensional coordinate of the moving object simultaneously using two cameras, and calculating the three-dimensional coordinate of the moving object by using the two two-dimensional data.
However, in method (1), the photographed image of the moving object itself is too small when a wide angle lens is used. Therefore, it is difficult to separate the moving object and the background. Also, because the image processing device, which calculates the geometric center of gravity (centroid) by inputting images, processes images in the unit of pixels; it had not been possible to measure the small movement of the moving objects.
In method (2), the measurable targets are limited because the moving range of the moving objects is limited.
These problems also arise when two cameras are used simultaneously. Moreover, when a wide angle lens is used, the precision of the three-dimensional coordinate measurement of the moving objects is lowered. Therefore, these measurement methods are used only in the laboratory. Moreover, the image processing depends on the measurement of the two-dimensional coordinates and does not utilize the characteristics of the movement of the moving objects in the three-dimensional measurement space. Therefore, it sometimes outputs invalid readings as a result of noise included in the image or the noise produced when separating the moving objects from the background.
When measuring the motion or actions of athletes outdoors, or in a stadium, method (3) can be used. However, a normal image signal, one frame corresponds to 1/60 second, therefore, for example, it is necessary to digitize the image of 432000 frames in order to investigate the record for two hours, and 600 processing hours are required, assuming that it takes 5 seconds to digitize one frame.
The present invention solves these problems and provides a measurement device which can capture the moving objects without using wide angle lenses even if the moving objects move in a wide range, and rapidly calculate the coordinate of the captured moving objects.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the first point of view of the present invention, the moving object measurement device includes one or more combinations of capturing an image of means to capture the moving objects, a driving means to set the capturing direction and the capturing range for the capturing means, an image processing means to calculate the location in the screen of the moving objects included in the image signal obtained by the capturing means, and a location calculation means to calculate the coordinate in the real space of the moving objects based on the information of the location obtained by the image processing
REFERENCES:
patent: 5055926 (1991-10-01), Christensen et al.
patent: 5243418 (1993-09-01), Kuno et al.
patent: 5422700 (1995-06-01), Suda et al.
patent: 5515448 (1996-05-01), Nishitani
Kuwashima Shigesumi
Nakamura Toru
Sekiguchi Dairoku
Shimizu Masao
Davis Monica S.
Johns Andrew W.
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