Measuring method and measuring instrument

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9797719-B2
Application number	US-201414488836-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 17, 2014
Priority date	Oct 1, 2013
Publication date	Oct 24, 2017
Grant date	Oct 24, 2017

Abstract

The invention provides a measuring method for performing monitoring measurement on two or more objects to be measured by a measuring instrument, which comprises a telescope unit for sighting an object to be measured, a distance measuring unit for projecting a distance measuring light through the telescope unit and for measuring a distance to the object to be measured, an image pickup unit for taking an image by projecting a sighting light in sighting direction and for acquiring digital image, an angle detecting unit for detecting a directional angle in sighting direction of the telescope unit and an automatic sighting unit for carrying out automatic sighting on the object to be measured by the telescope unit, comprising a step of setting up a searching range, a light amount switch-over step of switching over a light amount of projected sighting light to a light amount for a short distance or for a long distance, a short distance searching step of searching the searching range as the light amount for short distance and of performing a coarse measurement on the objects to be measured as positioned at short distance, a long distance searching step of searching the searching range as the light amount for long distance and performing a coarse measurement on the objects to be measured as positioned at long distance and a precise measurement step of carrying out automatic sighting on all objects to be measured based on the result of coarse measurement of the short distance searching and on the result of coarse measurement of the long distance searching and of distance measurement and angle measurement on each of the objects to be measured.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A measuring method for performing monitoring measurement on two or more objects to be measured by a measuring instrument, which comprises a telescope unit for sighting an object to be measured, a distance measuring unit for projecting a distance measuring light through said telescope unit and for measuring a distance to said object to be measured, an angle detecting unit for detecting a directional angle in sighting direction of said telescope unit and an automatic sighting unit, for carrying out automatic sighting on said object to be measured by said telescope unit by projecting a sighting light in sighting direction and for acquiring digital images with an image pickup unit, comprising:
a step of setting up a searching range,
a light amount switch-over step of switching over a light amplitude of projected sighting light to a light amplitude for a short distance or for a long distance,
a short distance searching step of searching the searching range at the light amplitude for short distance and of performing a coarse measurement on the objects to be measured as positioned at short distance,
a long distance searching step of searching the searching range at the light amplitude for long distance and of performing a coarse measurement on the objects to be measured as positioned at long distance and
a precise measurement step of carrying out automatic sighting on all objects to be measured based on the result of coarse measurement of said short distance searching and on the result of coarse measurement of said long distance searching and of distance measurement and angle measurement on each of the objects to be measured,
wherein said short distance searching step comprises:
a scanning step of scanning said searching range through said telescope unit,
an image acquiring step of acquiring digital images using the image pickup unit at a predetermined time interval in the process of scanning,
a directional angle measuring step of measuring a directional angle at the time of image acquisition using the angle detecting unit,
an image position detecting step of detecting an image of the objects to be measured in said digital image and of detecting an image position of the image of the objects to be measured, and
a coarse measurement step of measuring a composite directional angle of each of the objects to be measured based on the result of directional angle measurement and the result of detection of image position,

wherein said long distance searching step comprises:
a scanning step of scanning said searching range through said telescope unit,
a digital image acquiring step of acquiring digital images using the image pickup unit at a predetermined time interval in the process of scanning,
a directional angle measuring step of measuring directional angle at the time of image acquisition using the angle detecting unit,
an image position detecting step of detecting an image of the object to be measured in said digital images, of performing a masking processing of images on the objects to be measured positioned at a short distance based on the result of said coarse measurement as acquired by said short distance searching and detecting an image position of the image of object to be measured positioned at long distance, and
a coarse measurement step of measuring a composite directional angle of each of the objects to be measured based on the result of directional angle measurement and the result of the detection of image position.

2. A measuring method according to claim 1 , wherein said image acquiring step acquires digital images at a predetermined time interval so that there will be two or more images including a same object to be measured, and wherein said image position detecting step comprises a rectangle setting step of detecting an image of the objects to be measured in said digital image and setting a minimal rectangle surrounding said image of the objects to be measured, an integrated processing step of overlapping said minimal rectangles obtained from two or more digital images and acquiring rectangular data as set up so as to include all of the overlapped rectangles and a step of calculating deviation between a center of a rectangle and a sighting axis based on said rectangular data as acquired.

3. A measuring method according to claim 2 , further comprising a precise measurement step of making said telescope unit to automatically sight on said objects to be measured sequentially based on said directional angle as stored and performing a distance measurement and an angle measurement, and a step of associating measurement results obtained by said precise measurement with said objects to be measured and acquiring the measurement results as initial value.

4. A measuring method according to claim 1 , further comprising a precise measurement step of making said telescope unit to automatically sight on said objects to be measured sequentially based on said directional angle as stored and performing a distance measurement and an angle measurement, and a step of associating measurement results obtained by said precise measurement with said objects to be measured and acquiring the measurement results as initial value.

5. A measuring instrument, comprising
a telescope unit for sighting an object to be measured,
a distance measuring unit for projecting a distance measuring light through said telescope unit and for measuring a distance to said object to be measured,
an angle detecting unit for detecting a directional angle in sighting direction of said telescope unit,
an automatic sighting unit for carrying out automatic sighting on said object to be measured by said telescope unit by projecting a sighting light in sighting direction and for acquiring digital images with an image pickup unit,
an arithmetic processing part, and
a storage part,

wherein said distance measuring unit can change the light amount of the distance measuring light for short distance and for long distance, said arithmetic processing part rotates said telescope unit in horizontal direction and in vertical direction respectively with light amount for short distance and with light amount for long distance, said telescope unit scans in a predetermined range as set so as to include two or more objects to be measured, said automatic sighting unit acquires digital images at the predetermined time interval so that there will be two or more images including the same object to be measured, said arithmetic processing part detects the objects to be measured in said digital image, calculates a composite directional angle of said objects to be measured based on detection results of said angle detecting unit at the time of image acquisition and based on position of the image of the object to be measured in said digital image, makes said storage part store composite directional angle of the object to be measured as target value for automatic sighting by associating with each of the objects to be measured, and further, said arithmetic processing part performs masking processing based on composite directional angle acquired at short distance and restricts the acquisition of composite directional angles of the object to be measured as positioned at short distance in a case where a composite directional angle of the object to be measured is calculated by the light amount for long distance.

6. A measuring instrument according to claim 5 , wherein said arithmetic processing part sets up a minimal rectangle surrounding the image of the object to be measured, overlaps said minimal rectangles obtained at two or more digital images and acquires a data of rectangle as set up so that all of the overlapped rectangles are included, calculates a composite directional angle of each of said objects to be measured respecti

Assignees

• Kk Topcon

Inventors

• Nishita Nobuyuki

Classifications

• G01C15/002

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• G01C3/08 Primary

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