A video camera pans, tilts, zooms, and provides rotations of images of objects of its field of view, all without moving parts. The camera can be used for surveillance in areas where movement of the camera would be conspicuous or constrained by obstructions. It can also be used for close-up tracking of multiple objects in the field of view or to break an image into sectors for simultaneous viewing, thereby replacing several cameras.
The camera includes a fisheye lens, which creates a circular image of a hemispherical field of view on a charged-couple device (CCD). The image data are stored briefly in an input image buffer for processing. High-speed x- and y-transform digital processors correct the barrel distortion introduced by the fisheye lens and thereby enable the reconstruction of undistorted views of portions of the scene, From a single camera, the system produces as many as four simultaneous different views (virtual cameras) of the scene on a standard RS-170 video monitor at 30 frames per second.
The associated electronic circuitry includes a 32-bit microprocessor with 80-bit floating-point arithmetic support for parametric calculations. It performs control interface functions and calculates the coefficients for the x- and y-transform processors, which are independent arithmetic devices. A human operator programs the microprocessor through a control panel, choosing the magnification, viewing direction, rotation, and offset of the selected portion of the image. Command parameters can also be selected via RS-232 serial communications link.
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Dr. H. Lee Martin, President
TeleRobotics International, Inc.
7325 Oak Ridge Highway, Suite 104
Knoxville, TN 37931
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Maintained by: Dave Lavery
Last updated: May 10, 1996