JP4185376B2 - Image processing system - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention belongs to the technical field of image processing systems that process images for the purpose of image search and image display. In particular, the image to be processed is divided into a plurality of regions, and each region is compared with a reference image. The present invention belongs to the technical field of image processing systems that perform processing for determining whether or not there is a change.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Conventionally, an image processing system that accumulates a large amount of image data and selects and displays a predetermined image has been widely used. As one form of an image processing system, for the purpose of crime prevention or the like, a monitoring system having a function of recording a large number of images taken at a predetermined time interval by a monitoring camera and searching for a desired image is known. In such a monitoring system, it is desired to search for and refer to an image that is determined to be abnormal from a large number of images existing in time series. For this reason, a method (image motion determination) is known in which an obtained image is compared with a reference image to determine whether or not there is a change. For example, when a moving object such as a person is present in the shooting range, this method can be used to determine an image in which an abnormality has occurred because it is determined that there is a change in the image.
[0003]
On the other hand, in the case of a monitoring system, since there are a large number of images, it may be burdensome for the user to perform a search focusing on the entire image. Therefore, it is desired to search for an image in which an abnormality has occurred by paying attention to a part of the image capturing range. For example, this is a case where attention is paid to the movement of a person at a specific location in a captured image taken by a monitoring camera installed in a store or the like. As an image search in such a case, a method has been proposed in which an image is divided into a plurality of regions, and whether or not there is a change is determined for each region. (For example, refer to Patent Document 1). According to such a method, the user can designate the area of the image to be searched, and it is only necessary to determine whether or not there is a change for only the designated area, so that the search burden on the user is reduced.
[0004]
[Patent Document 1]
JP 2000-132669 A
[0005]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in a conventional image processing system that employs the above method, when a region of an image focused on by the user is specified, it is necessary to perform a series of image processing on the region to determine whether there is a change. Therefore, it takes time until a search result is obtained. In particular, when a large number of images are handled as in a monitoring system, it takes a considerable time to search for a desired image, which causes a problem of reducing work efficiency.
[0006]
Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of such problems, and by generating a change table that records the presence / absence of changes for each region in advance for an image to be processed, a user can quickly find a desired image. An object of the present invention is to provide an image processing system capable of reducing the time required for processing.
[0007]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to solve the above-described problem, an image processing system according to claim 1 is an image processing system that displays a temporally continuous image selected from a plurality of images , and a plurality of images to be processed. Change determination means for determining whether or not there is a change compared to a reference image for each area, and whether or not there is a change determined by the change determination means for each area and the image to be processed and the shooting time Change table generation means for generating a change table to be recorded in association;
A storage unit that stores the image and the change table, an area designating unit for an operator to arbitrarily designate an area that the operator wants to focus on from the plurality of areas, a main image display unit for displaying a main image, and a sub-image are displayed. A sub-image display unit for displaying, a time-axis display unit for displaying a time-axis indicating the entire photographing time of the image stored in the storage unit at least on the same screen, and designated by the region designating unit A search condition that refers to the presence or absence of the change in a region is created, a search execution unit that searches for an image that matches the search condition with reference to the change table, and a new region specification is made from the region specification unit In addition, the time zone in which the image searched by the search execution unit exists is displayed in an identifiable manner on the time axis of the time axis display unit, and the image searched by the operator by the search execution unit exists. Time By designating a part of the time axis corresponding to the band, the image retrieved by the retrieval execution unit is displayed on the sub-image display unit, and the designation is performed by the operator designating the sub-image. And a display control unit that displays an image including the sub-image on the main image display unit .
[0008]
According to the present invention, when an image is processed in the image processing system, the image is divided into a plurality of regions, each region is compared with the reference image to determine whether there is a change, and the determination result is recorded in association with the image. Generated change table. Then, by storing the generated change table in the storage unit, it is possible to refer to the change table together with the image as needed, for example, image search. Therefore, when performing a search focusing on a specific area of an image, it is not necessary to perform a process for determining whether or not there is a change for the specific area at that time, and it is only necessary to refer to a change table prepared in advance. Therefore, it is possible to shorten the time until an image search result is obtained, and to improve convenience.
[0009]
The image display system according to claim 2, in the image display system according to claim 1, wherein the display control unit displays on the region designation unit such that the presence / absence of region designation in the region designation unit can be visually determined. It is characterized by making it.
[0010]
According to the second aspect of the present invention, in the image processing system , the user can visually determine whether or not each area is designated by displaying the areas designated by the area designating unit in different colors .
[0011]
In the image processing system of the present application, the change table records the number of areas determined to have changed for the processing target image.
[0012]
According to the present invention, the image processing system can refer to the number of areas determined to have an image change by the change table, so that a desired image can be found by paying attention to the magnitude of the image change.
[0013]
In the image processing system of the present invention, an image search unit that generates a search condition for the image stored in the storage unit according to a predetermined input operation, and searches for an image that matches the search condition with reference to the change table; Image display means for displaying the image searched by the image search means on a display screen.
[0014]
According to the present invention, in the image processing system, a search condition is generated when an input operation for searching for an image stored in the storage means is performed, and an image that matches the search condition is searched with reference to the change table. The image is displayed on the display screen. Therefore, it is possible to promptly perform an image search, execute a search based on the change table, and quickly perform a series of operations for displaying the searched image, thereby improving work efficiency.
[0015]
In the image processing system of the present invention, the image search unit sets temporally continuous images that match the search conditions as image groups, and sets the image groups that are continuous for a predetermined period or more as image groups to be reproduced. The image display means displays the image group to be reproduced on the display screen.
[0016]
According to the present invention, when an image search is performed, an image group that matches the search condition is set, and an image group that does not satisfy a predetermined continuous number is excluded, and other image groups are displayed on the display screen. be able to. Therefore, for example, display is not performed in a case where a change occurs in an image due to, for example, a moving object crossing momentarily in the image capturing range, so that search efficiency can be further improved.
[0017]
In the image processing system of the present invention, the image processing system further includes an area designating unit that designates an area of an image when referring to the change table as the search condition, and the area designating unit is arranged on the display screen by the image display unit. A region is designated in accordance with a selection operation for the displayed image.
[0018]
According to the present invention, at the time of image search, an image area is designated by a selection operation for designating a predetermined area in the image display arranged on the display screen, and the change table is referred to using that area as a search condition. Therefore, when the user pays attention to a specific area of the image, it is possible to perform a search by specifying the attention area quickly and surely with a simple operation, and the usability can be improved.
[0019]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Below, the case where the image processing system which concerns on this invention is applied with respect to the monitoring system which image | photographs the monitoring object image with a surveillance camera and can transmit the image | photographed image via the internet is demonstrated.
[0020]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the monitoring system of the present embodiment. The monitoring system shown in FIG. 1 includes a management center 1 that manages the monitoring system and a plurality of monitoring cameras 2 installed in a facility to be monitored. Image data is received from each monitoring camera 2 via the Internet 3. It has a system configuration that is transmitted to the management center 1. The management center 1 is provided with an image recording server 11 and an image display terminal 12, each connected to a router 13 via a LAN, and configured to be able to transmit and receive information via the Internet 3. ing. An image display terminal 14 having the same function as the image display terminal 12 can be used by directly connecting to the Internet 3 outside the management center 1.
[0021]
The plurality of monitoring cameras 2 are respectively installed at locations where a predetermined shooting range can be shot in various facilities such as a store, and each shooting range is shot at a predetermined timing and corresponding image data is output. These surveillance cameras 2 are so-called Web cameras, and have a function of accessing the Internet 3 and transmitting image data to the management center 1. The image data transmitted by the monitoring camera 2 includes image-related information such as the monitoring camera 2 that has taken the image itself, identification information for identifying each image data, and date / time information indicating the date and time when the image was taken. Header information including information is added, and header information can be referred to as appropriate on the management center 1 side.
[0022]
In the management center 1, image data received from the monitoring camera 2 via the Internet 3 is transmitted to the image recording server 11 via the router 13 and the LAN. The image recording server 11 functions as a change determination unit, a change table generation unit, and a storage unit of the present invention, and sequentially records transmitted image data together with predetermined image related information. The image display terminal 12 functions as an image search unit and an image display unit of the present invention, searches image data recorded in the image recording server 11 via a LAN by a predetermined operation, and displays a desired image.
[0023]
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the image recording server 11. As shown in FIG. 2, the image recording server 11 includes a control unit 101, an interface 102, a storage unit 103, an image processing unit 104, and a change table generation unit 105.
[0024]
In the above configuration, the control unit 101 includes a CPU and the like, and controls the operation of the entire image recording server 11. The interface 102 inputs the image data transmitted from the monitoring camera 2 to the control unit 101. Then, the control unit 101 performs control so that the image data input through the interface 102 is stored in the storage unit 103 in association with image-related information such as the number of the monitoring camera 2 and the shooting date and time.
[0025]
The image processing unit 104 performs image processing on the image data input via the interface 102 or the image data read from the storage unit 103 under the instruction of the control unit 101, and outputs a plurality of images. Dividing into regions, the presence or absence of a change is determined for each region.
[0026]
Specifically, as shown in FIG. 3A, the entire image is divided into 16 rectangular areas, and the reference image and the image to be processed in a state where there is no moving object in the shooting range of the monitoring camera 2 are displayed. The presence or absence of a change can be determined by comparing each region. As a method for determining whether or not there is a change, for example, in each region, the number of different pixels is obtained when compared with a reference image, and when a predetermined threshold is exceeded, it is determined that there is a change, and is below a predetermined threshold. In this case, it may be determined that there is no change. In the example of FIG. 3A, it is determined that there is a change in the regions 9, 10, 13, 14, and 15 where the moving objects that do not exist in the reference image overlap.
[0027]
In the present embodiment, the case where the entire image is divided into 16 areas will be described. However, in practice, the entire image can be further divided into a large number of areas, and the same determination method can be applied.
[0028]
Based on the determination result by the image processing unit 104, the change table generation unit 105 generates a change table that integrally indicates the presence / absence of the change determined for each region for all the images to be processed. FIG. 3B is a diagram illustrating an example of a change table generated by the change table generation unit 105. The change table shown in FIG. 3B includes an image number for identifying image data, a determination result of presence / absence of change for each area constituting the image indicated by the image number, and at least one area or more. About the presence or absence of the change, the number of areas determined to have changed in the image, and the date and time when the image was taken.
[0029]
The image number shown in FIG. 3B is made up of a camera number for identifying a plurality of surveillance cameras 2 and a number given to the images taken by a specific surveillance camera 2 in the order of photography. For example, the image number 1-2 represents the second image taken by the first monitoring camera 2. Also, each area of the image is distinguished by assigning area numbers 1 to 16 as shown in FIG. In FIG. 3B, the determination result of whether or not there is a change is indicated as “present” or “absent” together with the area number of each area. In the example of FIG. 3B, the change table corresponding to the image of FIG. 3A is shown. Therefore, it is determined that each of the area numbers 9, 10, 13, 14, and 15 has changed, It is determined that there is no change in other areas.
[0030]
In the upper right part of FIG. 3B, whether or not there is a change in one or more areas, that is, whether or not there is a change in any of the entire areas of the image is shown as “change presence / absence”. In the lower part, the number of areas determined to be changed in the image is shown as “number of changed areas”. In the example of FIG. 3B, as described above, since five areas are determined to have changed, “change presence / absence” is “present” and “change area number” is five. Further, the date and time when the image with the image number 1-2 was photographed is shown as “photographing date and time”.
[0031]
The change table generated in this way is sequentially stored in the storage unit 103 via the control unit 101 and managed in association with the image data. In the image search described later, a desired change table is read from the storage unit 103 and referred to as necessary.
[0032]
Next, FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the image display terminal 12. The image display terminal 14 directly connected to the Internet 3 in FIG. 1 has the same configuration. As shown in FIG. 4, the image display terminal 12 includes a control unit 201, an interface 202, an operation unit 203, a search instruction unit 204, a table management unit 205, a search execution unit 206, and an image group determination unit 207. A thumbnail generation unit 208, a display control unit 209, and a display unit 210.
[0033]
In the above configuration, the control unit 201 includes a CPU or the like, controls the operation of the entire image display terminal 12, and targets image data and change tables held in the image recording server 11 based on a predetermined program. Image search processing and image display processing are executed. The search instruction unit 204, the table management unit 205, the search execution unit 206, the image group determination unit 207, and the thumbnail generation unit 208 are all functional elements that are controlled by the control unit 201 based on the predetermined program. Corresponding to
[0034]
The interface 202 inputs image data and a change table transmitted from the monitoring camera 2 to the control unit 201 at a predetermined timing such as when the image search terminal 12 is activated or at a predetermined input operation.
[0035]
The operation unit 203 is a means for inputting various information and setting conditions when the user of the image display terminal 12 attempts to perform a predetermined operation, and includes a mouse and a keyboard.
[0036]
The search instruction unit 204 generates a search condition table for instructing image search conditions based on the input operation of the operation unit 203. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a search condition table generated by the search instruction unit 204. In the search condition table shown in FIG. 5, whether or not to designate as a search target area is set for each area number given in FIG. When performing an image search based on the search condition table, for an area for which the search area specification is set to [Yes], the determination result of whether or not there is a change is referred to at the time of search, whereas the search area specification is “none”. For the region set to, the determination result of whether or not there is a change is not referred to at the time of search.
[0037]
The table management unit 205 manages and stores various tables necessary for image search. The table management unit 205 sequentially receives all change tables corresponding to the search target image from the image recording server 11 and generates a search table described later based on the change table. The change table is received when the image display terminal 12 is activated and whenever the operation camera 203 switches the selection of the monitoring camera 2 or the shooting date and time. In addition, the above-described search condition table necessary for matching with the search table is acquired and managed by the table management unit 205.
[0038]
The search execution unit 206 executes a search using the search condition table and the search table managed by the table management unit 205. That is, the search execution unit 206 determines a search condition based on the search condition table, and determines whether each image has a change that matches the search condition with reference to the search table. Then, the search results for all the search target images are recorded in the search table, and the search table of the table management unit 205 is updated.
[0039]
Here, FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a search table managed by the table management unit 205. The search table shown in FIG. 6 is configured by aggregating the change tables shown in FIG. In the example of FIG. 6, image number 1 is assigned to the head of the search table, and image numbers are assigned in order along the time series. In the search condition table of FIG. 5, since the area 9 and the area 12 are designated, the area 9 and the area 12 in the search table shown in FIG.
[0040]
In this case, the search condition for a plurality of regions may be either an AND condition or an OR condition, and can be switched by switching means (not shown). FIG. 6 shows an example of the OR condition. That is, “with change” is written as a search result for an image in which at least one of the areas 9 and 12 in the search table is “present”, and “no change” is written as a search result for the other images.
[0041]
Further, at the time of generating the above-described search table, the search execution unit 206 executes a search for all areas under OR conditions. That is, an image having a change in at least one area is searched and the search result is written in the search table. At this time, by referring to the change table sequentially received by the table management unit 205, it is possible to obtain “change presence / absence” and “number of change areas” from the change table, and to quickly perform the search process.
[0042]
The image group discriminating unit 207 discriminates temporally continuous images in which the search result is “changed” during the search by the search execution unit 206, and sets each as an image group. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of an image group table generated based on the determination result by the image group determination unit 207. In the image group table shown in FIG. 7A, the above-described image group that has changed in the search table of FIG. 6 is defined as “scene”. Then, a display number is assigned to each scene, and a start image number and an end image number are recorded based on the search table. Also, it records the number of images included in each scene as the scene length records the image number of the representative image is determined for each scene as described below.
[0043]
For example, in FIG. 7A, two images having image numbers 2 and 3 constitute a scene having a scene length of 2. Similarly, one image with image number 6 constitutes a scene with scene length 1, and an image group with image numbers 8 to 10 constitutes a scene with scene length 3. Each of these scenes can be displayed as a moving image on the display screen by a predetermined operation, which will be described in detail later.
[0044]
On the other hand, FIG. 7B is an image group table in a state where the scene length of 1 is excluded from the image group table shown in FIG. In the present embodiment, in order to remove an image that is less necessary to be noise when playing a scene, a scene length is set to a predetermined length when a “instant change exclusion setting unit” on the display screen described later is set and operated. The following scenes are excluded. In the example of FIG. 7B, a scene having a scene length of 1 is excluded, but in reality, a scene having a predetermined scene length or less may be excluded.
[0045]
The thumbnail generation unit 208 generates a thumbnail that is a reduced image of the image to be displayed. In the present embodiment, a thumbnail set as a representative image is associated with the scene set by the image group determination unit 207 and used during a search. That is, when a plurality of images are included in one scene, a thumbnail for an image representative of the scene is generated and displayed on the display screen as a representative image of the scene, thereby improving the convenience of search processing. Is.
[0046]
Here, as a method for determining a representative image for each scene, for example, an image having the largest number of change areas may be selected in a specific scene in the search table of FIG. At this time, when a plurality of images having the same number of change areas of each image are selected, an image with the preceding shooting time may be selected. In addition, in the case where the instantaneous change is not excluded, for a scene having a scene length of 1 consisting of a single image, the image is automatically determined as a representative image.
[0047]
Next, the display control unit 209 performs control for displaying the display screen generated by the control unit 201, and causes the display unit 210 to transmit predetermined display data at a predetermined timing to display the display screen. On the display screen displayed on the display unit 210 , as will be described later, images to be viewed by the user and various display objects for the user to perform predetermined operations and settings are arranged in a predetermined layout. As the display unit 201, for example, a CRT display, a liquid crystal display, or the like can be used.
[0048]
Hereinafter, a display screen displayed on the display unit 210 and an operation when a user who refers to the display screen performs an image search will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 8 to 11. FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining the entire display screen displayed on the display unit 201. As shown in FIG. 8, the display screen in this embodiment includes a main image display unit 301, a time axis display unit 302, a thumbnail display unit 303, a camera selection unit 304, a calendar display unit 305, and an area designation unit. 306, an instantaneous change exclusion setting unit 307, a time display unit 308, and a reproduction operation unit 309 are arranged.
[0049]
9 to 11 are enlarged views for explaining in detail a predetermined portion of the display screen shown in FIG. 9 shows a time axis display unit 302, FIG. 10 shows a thumbnail display unit 303, and FIG. 11 shows an area designation unit 306.
[0050]
As shown in FIG. 8, a main image display unit 301 arranged near the center on the display screen displays a specific image (main image) selected as a display target according to an input operation described later. That is, since an image of a predetermined shooting range captured at a predetermined time by the monitoring camera 2 selected from the plurality of monitoring cameras 2 is displayed, the user visually recognizes the image and determines the subsequent operation. be able to.
[0051]
The time axis display unit 302 is arranged below the main image display unit 301 and displays two types of time axes representing the relationship between the image to be displayed and the shooting date and time, as shown in FIG. The main time axis 302a shows a time range from 0:00 to 24:00 on a predetermined date in association with the state of the image. The sub time axis 302b shows an enlarged arbitrary time range in the 24-hour range of the main time axis 302a. The setting of the time range for the sub time axis 302b can be switched in a range of 10 minutes to 2 hours by a predetermined operation. In the example of FIG. 9, the case where the time range of the sub time axis 302b is set to 1 hour is shown.
[0052]
Normally, the sub time axis 302b is set to a time range centered on the shooting time of the image displayed on the main image display unit 301 in the time range of the main time axis 302a. On the other hand, the temporal positional relationship of the sub time axis 302b with respect to the main time axis 302a can be adjusted by moving the slider 302c above the main time axis 302a left and right.
[0053]
Note that, in the main time axis 302a and the sub time axis 302b, in order to identify the state of the image obtained as a result of the search processing, a specific time zone can be displayed in a different color corresponding to the state of the image. In the example of FIG. 9, the time zones A, B, and C of the main time axis 302a and the sub time axis 302b are set as scenes in the image group determined to have changed, that is, the image group table of FIG. Corresponds to the part. Thereby, the user can easily identify the time zone in which the scene is set.
[0054]
In addition, the surveillance camera 2 does not always continuously shoot, and image data is not recorded in the image recording server 11 depending on the time zone. Therefore, the time zone in which the target image does not exist on the main time axis 302a and the sub time axis 302b may be displayed in a different color.
[0055]
Each time range of the main time axis 302a and the sub time axis 302b is not limited to the above example, and may be set appropriately. For example, a time range longer than 24 hours may be set for the main time axis 302a, for example, a time range including all shooting times of displayable images. In addition, a predetermined time range centered on the shooting time of the image displayed on the main image display unit 301 may be set on the main time axis 302a.
[0056]
The thumbnail display unit 303 is disposed below the time axis display unit 302 and plays a role as a sub-image display unit of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 10, the thumbnail display unit 303 has a predetermined number (six in the case of FIG. 10) of thumbnails (sub-images) around the image at the center position of the sub-time axis 302b. Displayed in order of series. As described above, these thumbnails are associated as representative images of the respective scenes, and are the images having the largest changes among the images included in each scene. Accordingly, the user can easily select a thumbnail corresponding to a predetermined scene, paying attention to the change of the image. When the user selects and operates a predetermined thumbnail in the thumbnail display unit 303 with the mouse, the main image display unit 301 displays an enlarged image corresponding to the selected thumbnail.
[0057]
The camera selection unit 304 displays the installation location of the currently selected monitoring camera 2 and can appropriately select and input a specific monitoring camera 2 as a display target from the pull-down menu on the right side. When the user wants to switch the currently selected monitoring camera 2, when the mouse is operated and the pull-down menu is pressed, the installation locations of all displayable monitoring cameras 2 are displayed. 2 may be selected.
[0058]
The calendar display unit 305 displays a calendar for one month for designating the image shooting date. When the user selects and operates a predetermined day from the calendar display unit 305, an image captured on the selected predetermined day among the images of the monitoring camera 2 displayed on the camera selection unit 304 is set as a display target. Is done. Further, by pressing the “previous month” or “next month” at the top of the calendar display unit 305, it is possible to shift to a desired year and month.
[0059]
The area specifying unit 306 functions as an area specifying unit of the present invention in combination with the control unit 201 and the operation unit 203. As shown in FIG. 11, the area designating unit 306 is a display for designating an area to be searched for an image divided into 16 areas in the same shape as in FIG. In the area designation unit 306, a thumbnail corresponding to an image (or an image of a past predetermined date / time) displayed on the main image display unit 301 is displayed on the background, and the user selects and operates a predetermined region with the mouse. The area can be designated as a search target. It is desirable to designate a region by the region designation unit 306 when, for example, it is desired to search for an image by paying attention to a part of the photographing range of the selected monitoring camera 2 where an entrance / exit exists.
[0060]
It should be noted that the user can visually determine whether or not each area is designated by displaying the areas designated by the area designation unit 306 in different colors. The area once designated by the area designating unit 306 can be canceled by selecting again in that state.
[0061]
When an area is specified by the area specifying unit 306 in this way, the result is reflected in the search condition table by the search instruction unit 204. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, in order to specify the region numbers 9 and 12 as search targets, the region specifying unit 306 may select and operate two corresponding regions sequentially. Furthermore, the result of the designation in the area designation unit 306 is reflected in the search table by the search execution unit 205, so that the display target of the main image display unit 301, the time axis display unit 302, and the thumbnail display unit 303 on the display screen is displayed. Will be changed.
[0062]
The instantaneous change exclusion setting unit 307 is a display for input setting when the scene having the scene length 1 is excluded from the scenes included in the image group table as described above. When the user checks the check box on the left side of the instantaneous change exclusion setting unit 307 with the mouse, a scene corresponding to the image group table as shown in FIG. 7B is set.
[0063]
The time display unit 308 displays the date and time when the image displayed on the main image display unit 301 was captured. In the time display unit 308, setting values can be selected and input from the pull-down menu for each input item for the displayed date and time.
[0064]
The reproduction operation unit 309 is a display for allowing a user to perform a desired operation when the scenes set as described above are sequentially displayed on the main image display unit 301 and reproduced as a moving image. On the upper part of the reproduction operation unit 309, a button for shifting to the preceding scene and a button for shifting to the succeeding scene are arranged based on the scene at that time. In the center of the playback operation unit 309, a stop button, a playback button, and a double speed playback button are arranged for realizing a playback function similar to that of a video player when playing back each scene. In addition, a dial operation unit for realizing a similar reproduction function using a dial operation instead of a button operation is disposed below the reproduction operation unit 309.
[0065]
In the present embodiment, the surveillance camera 2 captures images at a relatively slow speed, for example, about one frame per second. In this case, when the playback button is pressed, the display image of the main image display unit 301 is similarly switched at the display timing of one frame per second. On the other hand, when the double speed playback button is pressed, the display image of the main image display unit 301 is switched at a display timing of two frames per second.
[0066]
As described above, by performing image processing in the present embodiment, the transmitted image data is stored in the image recording server 11, and a change table as shown in FIG. 3B is generated, together with the image data. The image is stored in the image recording server 11. After that, when the user instructs image search while referring to the display screen of the image display terminal 12, the change table is acquired from the image recording server 11 and the search table is generated. There is no need to do it. Therefore, in a situation where there are a large number of images taken by the monitoring camera 2, when an image search focusing on a specific area is instructed, the time until the search result is obtained can be short. Thus, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to shorten the time required for image search and improve work efficiency while maintaining good operability and visibility during image search.
[0067]
Note that the configuration of the monitoring system as the image processing system of the present embodiment can be changed as appropriate according to the application target. For example, in the configuration of the monitoring system shown in FIG. 1, the case where the image recording server 11 and the image display terminal 12 are configured separately is shown, but these may be configured integrally. In this case, a monitoring system may be configured by installing in the management center 1 a device having both the functions of the image recording server 11 and the image display terminal 12 (a device including the components shown in FIGS. 2 and 4).
[0068]
In the above embodiment, the case where the present invention is applied to the monitoring system has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention can be widely applied to image processing systems having various uses. In this case, the configuration in which the image data is transmitted from the plurality of monitoring cameras 2 is shown in the present embodiment, but the configuration may be such that the image data is output from various devices other than the monitoring camera 2, such as a VTR.
[0069]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, a change table for recording the presence / absence of a change for each region is generated in advance for an image to be processed, and the change table can be stored and referenced in association with the image to be processed. Therefore, even when the user pays attention to the change in the specific area, it is possible to shorten the time for searching for a desired image, and the work efficiency such as image search can be improved.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a monitoring system according to an embodiment.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image recording server.
FIG. 3A is an example of dividing the entire image into 16 rectangular regions in relation to the concept of image division and determination of the presence / absence of change for each region in the present embodiment. 3 (b) is an example of a change table that includes a determination result of whether or not there is a change for each region of the image.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image display terminal.
FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a search condition table generated by a search instruction unit of an image display terminal.
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a search table managed by a table management unit of the image display terminal.
FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of an image group table generated based on a determination result by an image group determination unit of the image display terminal.
FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an entire display screen displayed on the display unit of the image display terminal.
9 is an enlarged view of a time axis display unit in the display screen shown in FIG.
10 is an enlarged view of a thumbnail display section in the display screen shown in FIG.
11 is an enlarged view of an area designating part in the display screen shown in FIG.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Management center 2 ... Surveillance camera 3 ... Internet 11 ... Image recording server 12 ... Image display terminal 13 ... Router 14 ... Image display terminal 101 ... Control part 102 ... Interface 103 ... Memory | storage part 104 ... Image processing part 105 ... Change table generation Unit 201 ... Control unit 202 ... Interface 203 ... Operation unit 204 ... Search instruction unit 205 ... Table management unit 206 ... Search execution unit 207 ... Image group discrimination unit 208 ... Thumbnail generation unit 209 ... Display control unit 210 ... Display unit 301 ... Main Image display unit 302 ... Time axis display unit 303 ... Thumbnail display unit 304 ... Camera selection unit 305 ... Calendar display unit 306 ... Area designation unit 307 ... Instantaneous change exclusion setting unit 308 ... Time display unit 309 ... Playback operation unit

Claims (2)

An image processing system for displaying a temporally continuous image selected from a plurality of images ,
A change determination unit that divides an image to be processed into a plurality of regions and compares each region with a reference image to determine whether there is a change;
Change table generating means for generating a change table for recording the presence or absence of the change determined by the change determining means in association with the image to be processed and the shooting time for each region;
A storage unit for storing the image and the change table;
An area designating unit for an operator to arbitrarily designate an area that the operator wants to focus on from the plurality of areas, a main image display unit for displaying a main image, a sub-image display unit for displaying a sub-image, and an image in the storage unit A display unit for displaying a time axis display unit for displaying a time axis indicating the entire shooting time of at least on the same screen;
A search execution unit that creates a search condition that refers to the presence or absence of the change in the region specified by the region specification unit, and searches for an image that matches the search condition with reference to the change table;
Each time a region is newly designated from the region designation unit, the time zone in which the image searched by the search execution unit exists is displayed in an identifiable manner on the time axis of the time axis display unit. By specifying a part of the time axis corresponding to the time zone in which the image searched by the search execution unit exists, the image searched by the search execution unit is displayed on the sub-image display unit, A display control unit that causes the main image display unit to display an image including the designated sub-image by an operator designating the sub-image;
An image processing system comprising: The image processing system according to claim 1, wherein the display control unit causes the region designation unit to display the presence / absence of region designation in the region designation unit so as to be visually identifiable.

Images