Monitoring system and information processing apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2019279477-A1
Application number	US-201916293861-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 6, 2019
Priority date	Mar 9, 2018
Publication date	Sep 12, 2019
Grant date	—

Abstract

A monitoring system includes: a camera, a storage section, and a control unit. The camera photographs an object. The storage section stores a first photographed image photographed by the camera and a second photographed image photographed by the camera at a same photographing place of a photographing place of the first photographed image after the photographing of the first photographed image. The control unit includes a processor and, through execution of a control program by the processor, functions as an obstacle determination section and a control section. The obstacle determination section calculates a difference between the first photographed image and the second photographed image and determines, based on the difference, whether or not an obstacle is present in a photographing range of the camera. The control section performs, upon determination by the obstacle determination section that the obstacle is present, processing of reporting results of the determination.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A monitoring system comprising:
a camera photographing an object; a storage section storing a first photographed image photographed by the camera and a second photographed image photographed by the camera at a same photographing place of a photographing place of the first photographed image after the photographing of the first photographed image; and a control unit including a processor and, through execution of a control program by the processor, functioning as: an obstacle determination section calculating a difference between the first photographed image and the second photographed image and determining, based on the difference, whether or not an obstacle is present in a photographing range of the camera, and a control section performing, upon determination by the obstacle determination section that the obstacle is present, processing of reporting results of the determination.

2 . The monitoring system according to claim 1 , further comprising
an information processing apparatus being connected to the camera, wherein the information processing apparatus includes the control unit.

3 . The monitoring system according to claim 1 , wherein
the obstacle determination section extracts an image region of the second photographed image, the image region being a region having dissimilarity to the first photographed image, and calculates a size of the extracted image region as the difference.

4 . The monitoring system according to claim 3 , wherein
the obstacle determination section sequentially selects each pixel from all pixels forming the first photographed image, also sequentially selects, as a contrast target, a pixel of the second photographed image located at a same position as a position of the pixel selected in the first photographed image, upon the every selection, determines whether or not pixel values of the respective pixels selected from the first and second photographed images differ from each other, counts a number of the pixels determined to be different, determines that the size of the image region is equal to or greater than a threshold value in a case where the counted number of the pixels is equal to or greater than a preset specified value, and determines that the size of the image region is less than the threshold value in a case where the counted number of the pixels is less than the specified value.

5 . The monitoring system according to claim 3 , wherein
the obstacle determination section sequentially selects each pixel for a predefined partial region in the first photographed image, sequentially selects, as the contrast target, the pixel of the second photographed image located at the same position as the position of the pixel selected in the first photographed image, upon the every selection, determines whether or not the pixel values of the respective pixels selected from the first and second photographed images differ from each other, counts the number of the pixels determined to be different, determines that the size of the image region is equal to or greater than the threshold value in a case where the counted number of the pixels is equal to or greater than the specified value, and determines that the size of the image region is less than the threshold value in a case where the counted number of the pixels is less than the specified value.

6 . The monitoring system according to claim 1 , wherein
after the photographing of the first photographed image, the photographing of the second photographed image by the camera is performed at least twice at a time interval and each of the second photographed images is stored into the storage section, and the obstacle determination section calculates a difference between the first photographed image and each of the second photographed images, determines that the obstacle is present in a case where the difference for each of the second photographed images is equal to or greater than the threshold value, and determines that the obstacle is not present in a case where the difference for either of the second photographed images is less than the threshold value.

7 . The monitoring system according to claim 6 , wherein
in a case where the difference for either of the second photographed images is less than the threshold value, the obstacle determination section determines that the obstacle is not present only when the difference for the second photographed image photographed at later time is less than the threshold value.

8 . The monitoring system according to claim 1 , further comprising
a display section, wherein upon the determination by the obstacle determination section that the obstacle is present, the control section causes the display section to display the first photographed image and the second photographed image.

9 . An information processing apparatus comprising:
a storage section storing a first photographed image photographed by a camera photographing an object and a second photographed image photographed by the camera at a same place as a place of the first photographed image after the photographing of the first photographed image; and a control unit including a processor and, through execution of a control program by the processor, functioning as: an obstacle determination section calculating a difference between the first photographed image and the second photographed image, and determining, based on the difference, whether or not an obstacle is present in a photographing range of the camera, and a control section performing, upon determination by the obstacle determination section that the obstacle is present, processing of reporting results of the determination.

Assignees

• Kyocera Document Solutions Inc

Inventors

• Sakashita Fumiya
• Hiranuma Yoichi
• Sakaguchi Shoichi
• Fujiwara Shohei

Classifications

• G06T2207/30232

  Surveillance · CPC title

• G06T2207/10016

  Video; Image sequence · CPC title

• G06T7/62

  of area, perimeter, diameter or volume · CPC title

• G06T7/194

  involving foreground-background segmentation · CPC title

• G06T7/11

  Region-based segmentation · CPC title