JPH09224227A - Camera device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) Abstract: An object of the present invention is to provide a camera device that can be easily operated remotely. SOLUTION: The left-right direction moving unit 10 is provided so as to be movable in the left-right direction, the left-right direction driving unit 11 that drives the left-right direction moving unit 10, and a controller 33 that controls the whole.
An imaging lens 13, a camera image circuit 14 that generates a video signal, a vertical drive unit 16 that vertically changes the shooting direction, a memory 34, a horizontal movement unit that moves integrally with the imaging lens 13, and a temperature Infrared sensor 3 provided to discriminate between humans and non-human objects based on the difference
0, and the memory 34 stores information indicating the position of a person based on the result detected by the infrared sensor 30. The controller 33 refers to this accumulated information and controls the left-right direction drive unit 11 so that the imaging lens 13 faces the position where a person exists.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a camera device used in an electronic conference system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the recent widespread use of digital public lines and the standardization of digital compression methods for still images and moving images,
The field of application utilizing digital transmission of images is expanding, and the video conference system is one of them. And the system is rapidly becoming popular in the market in combination with the price reduction.

Next, the conventional control of the photographing direction of the camera and its operation will be described. FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a conventional camera and a conference system using this camera, and FIG. 8 is an external view of the conventional camera. In FIG. 7, the camera 1, the codec section 2, the operation panel 3 and the monitor 4 are elements on the own side, and the camera 8, the codec section 6, the operation panel 7 and the monitor 9 are elements on the other side. The elements are connected by a public communication line 5.

As shown in FIG. 8, the camera 1 has a left-right direction moving section 10 which is turned leftward or rightward as shown by an arrow when the left-right direction driving section 11 is operated. The left-right direction moving unit 10 is provided with an imaging lens 13, and when the left-right direction moving unit 10 changes its direction in the left-right direction, the shooting direction of the imaging lens 13 changes accordingly.

Further, as shown in FIG.
0 indicates a camera image circuit 14 that generates a video signal based on a signal output from the image pickup lens 13, a lens zoom drive unit 15 that performs zooming of the image pickup lens 13, and a vertical direction that changes the shooting direction in the vertical direction of the image pickup lens 13. A direction drive unit 16 is provided. Further, 12 is a camera image circuit 14, a lens zoom drive unit 15, and a left-right direction drive unit 1.
1 is a camera control unit that controls the vertical drive unit 16.

In the codec section 2, 23 is an image control section for connecting the image signal output from the camera image circuit 14 or the image signal of the other party expanded by the image compression / expansion section 24 to the monitor 4, and 24 is the image of the other party. An image compression / expansion unit 22 which expands the signal and compresses the video signal on its own side, and a communication control unit 21 which is connected to the image compression / expansion unit 24 and the public communication line 5 and controls the input / output of the compressed video signal. Is an operation control unit that controls the image control unit 23 and the communication control unit 22.

Next, the operation of the conventional camera will be described. The image captured by the imaging lens 13 is a camera image circuit 14
Then, it becomes a video signal and is output to the image control unit 23. The shooting angle of view of the imaging lens 13 is drive-controlled by the lens zoom drive unit 15 controlled by the camera control unit 12. Further, the imaging lens 13 is controlled to be driven in the vertical direction by the vertical driving unit 16, and is moved in the horizontal direction by the horizontal driving unit 11. And the imaging lens 1
The left, right, up and down directions of 3 are grasped and controlled by the camera controller 12.

The image control unit 23 controls the image pickup lens 1
3 video signal and / or image compression / decompression unit 24
The video signal of the other party expanded by is connected to the monitor 4, and the attendees of the electronic conference are watching the captured image of the communication partner or their own image on the monitor 4.

The operation information of the conference system input by the attendees by operating the operation panel 3 is input to the operation control unit 21, and the operation control unit 21 receives the communication control unit 22, the image control unit 23,
Since it is connected to the camera control unit 12, it is possible to operate both the own codec unit 2 and the other party's codec unit 2 and the photographing camera 1.

In this way, the shooting direction and shooting angle of view of the camera 1 can be operated. Also, the shooting direction and shooting angle of view of the camera 8 of the other party can be remotely controlled by the operation panel 3 on the own side. This is because the operation content of the operation panel 3 on the own side is processed by the operation control unit 21 and then transmitted to the other codec 6 via the communication control unit 22.

[0011]

However, in order to see a specific person among the attendees on the other side, when the photographing direction of the photographing camera on the other side is remotely controlled, the other side can only see the image during communication. I do not know the shooting situation of my camera. In other words, the state of the other party can be seen only with a very narrow field of view, and it is very difficult to operate. In addition to this, since the video image taken by the other party passes through the image compression / expansion device and the communication system, a delay time of 1 second to 2 seconds occurs before being displayed on the own monitor. Therefore, the user can only see the image of the other party 1-2 seconds ago. As a result, it is more difficult to remotely control the shooting direction of the camera of the other party.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a camera device which can be easily operated remotely.

[0013]

A camera according to the present invention includes a left-right direction moving section which is provided so as to be movable in the left-right direction, a left-right direction driving section which moves the left-right direction moving section in the left-right direction, and a controller which controls the whole. And a memory accessed by the controller, and the left-right direction moving unit includes a taking lens, a camera image circuit that generates a video signal from the output of the taking lens, and a vertical drive unit that changes the taking direction of the taking lens up and down. And an infrared sensor that moves integrally to the left and right with the shooting lens and that is provided to distinguish between a human and an object other than a human due to a temperature difference, and the result detected by the infrared sensor is stored in the memory. Based on this, information indicating the position of the human being is accumulated, and the controller refers to this information so that the shooting lens is directed in the left-right direction so as to face the position where the human exists. And to control the moving parts.

[0014]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION With the above configuration, the operation for directing the photographing direction of the camera to the direction of the conference attendees can be performed extremely easily and the operability is improved.

Next, the control of the photographing direction of the conventional camera and its operation will be described. FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a conventional camera and a conference system using this camera, and FIG. 8 is an external view of the conventional camera. In FIG. 7, the camera 1, the codec section 2, the operation panel 3 and the monitor 4 are elements on the own side, and the camera 8, the codec section 6, the operation panel 7 and the monitor 9 are elements on the other side. The elements are connected by a public communication line 5.

As shown in FIG. 8, the camera 1 has a left-right direction moving section 10 which is turned leftward or rightward as shown by an arrow when the left-right direction driving section 11 is operated. The left-right direction moving unit 10 is provided with an imaging lens 13, and when the left-right direction moving unit 10 changes its direction in the left-right direction, the shooting direction of the imaging lens 13 changes accordingly.

Further, as shown in FIG.
0 indicates a camera image circuit 14 that generates a video signal based on a signal output from the image pickup lens 13, a lens zoom drive unit 15 that performs zooming of the image pickup lens 13, and a vertical direction that changes the shooting direction in the vertical direction of the image pickup lens 13. A direction drive unit 16 is provided. Further, 12 is a camera image circuit 14, a lens zoom drive unit 15, and a left-right direction drive unit 1.
1 is a camera control unit that controls the vertical drive unit 16.

In the codec section 2, 23 is an image signal output from the camera image circuit 14 or an image compression / expansion section 24.
The image control unit for connecting the video signal of the other party, which has been expanded, to the monitor 4, 24 expands the video signal of the other party,
An image compression / expansion unit for compressing the video signal on the own side, a communication control unit 22 connected to the image compression / expansion unit 24 and the public communication line 5 for controlling the input / output of the compressed video signal, and 21 an image control unit 23 and The operation control unit controls the communication control unit 22.

Next, the operation of the conventional camera will be described. The image captured by the imaging lens 13 is a camera image circuit 14
Then, it becomes a video signal and is output to the image control unit 23. The shooting angle of view of the imaging lens 13 is drive-controlled by the lens zoom drive unit 15 controlled by the camera control unit 12. Further, the imaging lens 13 is controlled to be driven in the vertical direction by the vertical driving unit 16, and is moved in the horizontal direction by the horizontal driving unit 11. And the imaging lens 1
The left, right, up and down directions of 3 are grasped and controlled by the camera controller 12.

The image control unit 23 also controls the image pickup lens 1
3 video signal and / or image compression / decompression unit 24
The video signal of the other party expanded by is connected to the monitor 4, and the attendees of the electronic conference are watching the captured image of the communication partner or their own image on the monitor 4.

The operation information of the conference system input by the attendees by operating the operation panel 3 is input to the operation control unit 21, and the operation control unit 21 receives the communication control unit 22, the image control unit 23,
Since it is connected to the camera control unit 12, it is possible to operate both the own codec unit 2 and the other party's codec unit 2 and the photographing camera 1.

In this way, the shooting direction and shooting angle of view of the camera 1 can be operated. Also, the shooting direction and the shooting angle of view of the camera 8 of the other party can be remotely controlled by the operation panel 3 on the own side. This is because the operation content of the operation panel 3 on the own side is processed by the operation control unit 21 and then transmitted to the other codec 6 via the communication control unit 22.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a camera according to an embodiment of the present invention and a conference system using the camera, and FIG. 2 is an external view of the camera according to the embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the same components as those in FIGS. 7 and 8 showing the conventional configuration are designated by the same reference numerals and the description thereof will be omitted.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 30 denotes an infrared sensor, and in the present embodiment, five elements are arranged linearly. Each element of the infrared sensor 30 is connected to the sensor signal processing unit 31, and a voltage almost proportional to the temperature of the measured object by the infrared sensor 30 can be obtained. You can know the temperature of. The infrared sensor 30 is arranged in a direction orthogonal to the rotation direction of the left-right direction moving unit 10.

The temperature information of the object to be measured obtained by the sensor signal processing unit 31 is output to the A / D converter 32, and after the analog voltage data is converted into digital data,
It is output to the controller 33. This controller 33
Includes a software which operates on the arithmetic processing circuit together with the arithmetic processing circuit, and is a memory 34 for processing temperature information which will be described later, and stores position information of attendees. It is connected. The controller 33 is connected to the camera control unit 12, and the controller 33 controls the shooting direction and the shooting angle of view of the imaging camera 13 via the camera control unit 12 according to the control command. Reference numeral 35 is a lens that appropriately condenses infrared rays of the object to be measured on the infrared sensor 30, and is arranged coaxially with the front surface of the infrared sensor 30.

Now, as described above, the infrared sensor 3
0 consists of five elements, and the output of each of the elements is output to the sensor signal processing unit 31.
That is, in the sensor signal processing unit 31, by amplifying with an amplifier circuit using an operational amplifier as shown in FIG. 3, an output voltage in a direct proportional relationship is obtained due to the temperature difference between the element and the DUT as shown in FIG. To be

Here, the human being is a constant temperature animal and emits infrared rays according to the body temperature. The ambient temperature of the conference room where the conference is held is generally around 25 degrees, which is lower than the human body temperature. As a result, it is possible to determine that the object to be measured whose temperature is about 6 degrees or more higher than the ambient temperature in the room where the electronic conference is held is a human, and whether the human is present or not is determined by the output of this element. You can judge.

The above description is for the case where there is one element, but in the present embodiment, the infrared sensor 30 in which five elements are arranged one-dimensionally is used, and the amplifier of FIG. 3 is used for each element. Sensor signal processing unit 31 with each connected
Is configured.

The voltage signals obtained from the five elements are converted into digital signals by the A / D converter 32 via the sensor signal processing section 31, and input to the controller 33. Further, the camera 1 can move the left-right direction moving unit 10 to the left and right, and at this time, it can move while simultaneously grasping the direction in which the imaging lens 13, the infrared sensor 30, and the lens 35 are directed. Here, the infrared sensor 30 is a one-dimensional sensor, but it is possible to obtain two-dimensional sensor information by accumulating information during the movement in the rotational direction to the left and right.

The method of obtaining the two-dimensional sensor information will be described in more detail. The infrared sensor 30 and the lens 35 arranged in front of the infrared sensor 30 are set to measure an angle of ± 15 degrees in the vertical direction in five divisions, and the light-converging characteristic in the left-right direction is set to about 3 degrees. ing.
The output signal of the infrared sensor 30 is input to the controller 33 and stored in the memory 34.

The camera 1 rotates ± 100 degrees about the front, and at this time, every time the left-right direction moving unit 10 rotates 3 degrees, the information once obtained by the infrared sensor 30 is formed in a matrix in the memory 34. Remember. This content is shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 5, the memory 34 stores temperature information corresponding to the respective angles divided into 66 left and right according to the left-right rotation of the camera 1 (in this case, 200 degrees in the entire area). . As shown in FIG. 5, if there is a human A around the camera 1 and a human B near the human A, the temperature information is stored in the memory 34 corresponding to each human (see the shaded area), and the human A The horizontal position and the vertical position of the person B and the solid angle thereof are stored. Since the converging direction of the infrared sensor 30 and the photographing direction of the photographing lens 35 are substantially the same, the controller 33 calculates the central position of each region in which a person is present based on the temperature information accumulated in the memory 34. , The position where there is a person is camera 1
You will also know in which direction. Therefore, by directing the shooting direction of the camera 1 to that position, the target person can be immediately put in the visual field of the camera 1.

FIG. 6 is a plan view of the operation panel according to the embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 6, reference numerals 41 to 44 are buttons for pointing the camera 1 vertically and horizontally.
5 and 46 are provided, and when these buttons 45 and 46 are pressed,
As described above, the camera 1 is controlled so that the photographing direction of the camera 1 is automatically oriented in the direction in which the person is detected. For example, when the operation button 45 of FIG. 6 is pressed once while the camera 1 is facing the person B of FIG. 5, the person A is automatically controlled to photograph.
When the operation button 45 is pressed again, the human C is automatically photographed. By using the operation button 46, the shooting direction of the camera 1 can be controlled by a single operation for the person on the right side.

In the prior art, after the shooting angle of view has been optimized, it is necessary to operate the shooting angle of view operation button so as to optimize the shooting angle of view. However,
In the camera of the present embodiment, the data for detecting the presence of a person is stored in the memory 34, and the solid angle of each person can be calculated as the direction of the presence of the person is calculated by the controller 33. That is, the controller 33 calculates the optimum photographing angle when photographing each person. Accordingly, similar to the above-described automatic control of the photographing direction to the human direction, the photographing direction can be automatically controlled and the photographing angle of view can be automatically controlled to be appropriate.

Therefore, by pressing the operation buttons 45 and 46 of FIG. 6 once, the photographing direction and the photographing angle of view are automatically controlled to be appropriate. However, the above description has been made on the condition that the measurement data by the infrared sensor 30 has already been stored in the memory 34, but since this data does not exist when the power is turned on, the operation buttons 45, 4
When 6 is pressed, the camera 1 is rotated by 200 degrees in the entire rotation range in the left-right direction, the infrared sensor 30 performs measurement, and the data is stored in the memory 34. At that time, the infrared sensor 30 is vulnerable to noise due to fluctuation of the object to be measured,
Instead of slowing down the rotation speed to some extent to suppress the influence of noise or increasing it, it is necessary to rotate a light shield generally called a chopper to periodically shield the front surface of the sensor, but in the present embodiment, the infrared sensor At the time of measurement by 30, the rotation speed is slowed down to the required speed. However, at a general meeting, since the attendees rarely move during the meeting, infrared measurement can be done even once. However, the arrangement of the attendees may change during the meeting. In this case, even if the operation buttons 45 and 46 are moved to the end points of the respective rotations, if the rotation operation toward the end point of the rotations is further performed twice, the infrared rays are again emitted. Infrared is measured by the sensor 30 and stored in the memory 34, so that control errors are reduced. However, this infrared measurement takes some time as described above. Therefore, in the present embodiment, in order to eliminate the re-measurement as much as possible, when the operator performs the operation of rotating the camera 1 at a rotation speed that satisfies the infrared measurement by the infrared sensor 30, the measurement data of the infrared measurement is obtained. Update the rotation area that can be measured,
We try to improve the control error for the movement of attendees during this conference.

[0036]

The camera of the present invention is provided with a left-right direction moving section which is provided so as to be movable in the left-right direction, a left-right direction driving section which moves the left-right direction moving section in the left-right direction, a controller which controls the whole, and The left-right direction moving unit includes a memory accessed by a controller, and the left-right direction moving unit vertically drives the photographing lens, a camera image circuit for generating a video signal from an output of the photographing lens, and a vertical direction for changing the photographing direction of the photographing lens. Section, and an infrared sensor that moves in the left-right direction integrally with the taking lens and that is provided to discriminate between a human and an object other than a human due to a temperature difference, and the memory includes the infrared sensor. Information indicating the position of a person is accumulated based on the detection result,
The controller refers to this information to control the left-right direction driving unit so that the photographing lens faces the position where a person is present. Therefore, the photographing direction for timely photographing different attendees attending the electronic conference. The operation to adjust the shooting direction to each attendee by operating the right, left, up, and down is greatly simplified and operability is improved. Further, according to claim 2 of the present invention, the shooting angle-of-view operation for appropriately setting the shooting angle of view at the time of shooting each attendee is greatly simplified together with claim 1, and in addition, the conference is performed by the electronic conference system. The operability of the control operation for photographing the attendees of the above is improved, especially when the communication partner side is remotely controlled. Further, according to claim 3, it is possible to improve the control error when the positions of the attendees change during the conference.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a camera and a conference system using the camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an external view of a camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of signal processing of the infrared sensor according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of characteristics of the infrared sensor according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of accumulation of infrared information and a rotation angle of a camera according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a plan view of the operation panel according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a conventional camera and a conference system using this camera.

FIG. 8 is an external view of a conventional camera

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Left-right direction moving section 11 Left-right direction driving section 13 Imaging lens 14 Camera image circuit 16 Up-down direction driving section 30 Infrared sensor 33 Controller 34 Memory

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A left-right direction moving section provided to be movable in the left-right direction, a left-right direction driving section for moving the left-right direction moving section in the left-right direction, a controller for controlling the whole, and a memory accessed by the controller. The left-right direction moving unit includes a taking lens, a camera image circuit that generates a video signal from the output of the taking lens, a vertical drive unit that changes the taking direction of the taking lens up and down, and the taking lens. And an infrared sensor provided to move in the left-right direction integrally with each other and to discriminate between a human and an object other than a human by a temperature difference, and the memory is based on a result detected by the infrared sensor. Information indicating the position of the human being is accumulated, and the controller refers to this information so that the photographing lens is directed to the position where the human exists. The camera apparatus characterized by controlling the lateral direction driving unit. 2. The camera device according to claim 1, wherein the controller automatically adjusts a shooting angle of view according to a solid angle of a person to be shot based on the two-dimensional position information. 3. The camera device according to claim 1, wherein the controller updates the information in the memory when the moving rotational speed satisfies the measurement condition of the infrared sensor.