Camera system and method for determining a viewing frustum
A novel system and method for determining a viewing frustum for a wide angle camera system employs multiple detection sub-systems to detect the presence or occurrence of events and/or objects of interest within the entire captured field of view of the system and processes the results of those detection sub-systems in accordance with a Hierarchy of Interest to select a viewing frustum for providing a de-warped view of interest to a viewer. The Hierarchy of Interest can be predefined, or selected from a set of Hierarchies of Interest and/or can be adaptive is response to feedback from a viewer.
1. A wide angle camera system, comprising:
a lens;
an image sensor;
a sensor processor;
an image processor; and
a communications unit, wherein the image processor examines a captured image with at least two different detector sub-systems each operable to detect the presence or occurrence of a different object or event and its location within the captured image, the image processor processing the outputs from the at least two detector sub-systems in accordance with a hierarchy of interest to select a viewing frustum for the captured image and the image processor de-warping the image corresponding to selected viewing frustum and providing the de-warped image to the communications unit for transmission to a viewer.
2. The system according to claim 1 wherein the lens is an anamorphic lens.
3. The system according to claim 1 wherein the camera is a video camera and the de-warped image is a frame of video.
4. A method for providing a de-warped image of interest from an image captured by a wide angle camera, comprising the steps of:
examining the captured image with at least two detection sub-systems, each detection sub-system examining the image for the presence or occurrence of a different event or object and outputting its location within the captured image if the corresponding presence or occurrence is detected;
processing each detected location in accordance with a hierarchy of interest to select a corresponding viewing frustum;
processing the captured image using the selected viewing frustum to produce a de-warped image; and
providing the de-warped image to a viewer.
5. The method according to claim 4 wherein the camera is a video camera and the de-warped image is a frame of video.