System and method for a software steerable web camera with multiple image subset capture
View Patent ↗A method of capturing a scene within a field of view of a wide-angle lens coupled to a camera comprising storing image data of the scene in an image collection array, digitizing the scene image data into digitized scene image data for storage in a memory, receiving selections of a plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data, and performing distortion compensation on the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data.
1. A method of capturing a scene within a field of view of a wide-angle lens coupled to a camera, the method comprising:
storing image data of the scene in an image collection array;
digitizing the scene image data into digitized scene image data for storage in a memory;
receiving selections of a plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data;
performing distortion compensation on the plurality of selected subsets of the digitized scene image data to correct for distortion introduced by the wide-angle lens as a function of a relative distance within the image from an axis of the image; and
transmitting respective ones of the distortion compensated subsets of the digitized scene image data to one or more destination devices.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data are selected serially.
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising: reconstructing the selected plurality of subsets into an integrated output image.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein a subset corresponds to a focus area in the scene.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the camera is used to transmit images over a network.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the camera is communicatively coupled to a set top box that is capable of transmitting images over a network.
7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: performing compression on the distortion-compensated subsets of the digitized scene image data.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data is automatically selected based on detected activity in the scene.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the selected subsets of the digitized scene image data is selected based on a user command.
10. The method of claim 1 wherein at least two of the selected subsets are overlapping.
11. The method of claim 1 wherein at least two of the selected subsets are non-overlapping.
12. The method of claim 1 wherein at least two of the selected subsets are serially selected by one or more users.
13. The method of claim 1 wherein the wide-angle lens comprises a fish-eye lens.
14. A machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions to cause a computing device to perform a method, comprising:
storing image data of a scene in an image collection array captured by a wide-angle lens;
digitizing the scene image data into digitized scene image data and store the digitized scene image data in a memory;
receiving selections of a plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data;
performing distortion compensation on the plurality of selected subsets of the digitized scene image data to correct for distortion introduced by the wide-angle lens as a function of a relative distance within the image from an axis of the image; and
transmitting the plurality of selected subsets of the distortion compensated digitized scene image data to at least one destination device.
15. An apparatus for capturing a scene within a field of view of a wide-angle lens of a camera, comprising:
means for storing image data of the scene;
means for digitizing the scene image data into digitized scene image data;
means for receiving selections of a plurality of subsets of the digitized scene image data;
means for performing distortion compensation on the plurality of selected subsets of the digitized scene image data to correct for distortion introduced by the wide-angle lens as a function of a relative distance within the image from an axis of the image; and
means for transmitting respective ones of the distortion-compensated subsets of the digitized scene image data to one or more destination devices.
16. The apparatus of claim 15 further comprising: means for reconstructing the selected plurality of subsets into an integrated output image.
17. The apparatus of claim 15 further comprising: means for transmitting the distortion-compensated subsets of the digitized scene image data through a network.
18. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein at least two of the selected subsets are serially selected by one or more users.