JPS63244277A - Image area measuring instrument - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To rapidly measure the area of an image by integrating the area of an image in a sampling area measured every scanning line on the basis of information relating to the position of the sampling area. CONSTITUTION:The titled equipment is provided with an area information storing circuit 20 for storing information relating to the positions of two or more sampling areas previously set up in a two-dimensional image and inner area integrating circuits 10 for detecting that a scanning position is included within a set sampling area on the basis of the stored information, measuring the area of an image existing in a sampling area corresponding to the scanning position and integrating the measured area every sampling area. Consequently, the area of an image can be rapidly measured every plural sampling area.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an image area measuring device that measures the area of an image for each sampling area.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, an image processing device that performs image recognition, pattern matching, etc. focuses on the image area, which is excellent as a representative characteristic value of an image, and measures the area of an image captured by a television camera or the like. It is. In other words, among the representative characteristics (1 m (e.g., circumference, center of gravity, maximum angle, area, etc.) extracted from visible objects), area is the most suitable for human intuition, so it is used in image recognition, etc. The results can be best quantified if you decide where to place the points while looking at the image.
By using the image area, areas for feature extraction can be selected on a one-on-one basis, and various tasks such as teaching, such as determining whether an imaged object is good or bad, can be easily performed.

Area measuring devices used for these purposes are designed to separate and measure multiple objects existing in one screen, or to capture the characteristics of the imaged object appropriately. It is common to set up several sampling areas. That is, the measurement of the image area is performed for each of these sampling areas.

[Problems to be solved by the invention] However, in order to efficiently and accurately capture the characteristics of a target, there is a problem in that when a large number of sampling areas are set on one screen, the speed of area measurement becomes significantly slower. . For example, if N sampling areas are set and the area of the image for each sampling area is measured using software, as shown in Figure 9, Judging whether there is one (step S1),
Determining whether the pixel is active (step S
2), area count up processing (step S3),
It is necessary to determine whether all processing has been completed (step S4). Therefore, assuming that the above processing regarding one sampling area requires time t1, the total time T=NXtl is required.

As a result, it takes a long time to measure the area of each sampling area, which not only makes it impossible to measure in real time, but also reduces work efficiency.

Image area meter a! of the present invention! The II device was developed with the aim of solving the above problems and measuring the image area of each of a plurality of sampling areas at high speed.

The structure of the present invention that achieves the above object will be described below.

Means for Solving Problem E] The image area measuring device of the present invention, which measures the area of an image within a plurality of sampling areas set for a two-dimensional image for each sampling area, an area information storage circuit that stores information regarding the positions of two or more preset sampling areas; and an area information storage circuit that stores information regarding the positions of two or more preset sampling areas; a sampling area detection circuit that detects the area based on the information obtained by scanning the two-dimensional image; and an in-line area measuring circuit that measures the area of the image existing in the sampling area corresponding to the scanning position for each scanning line as the two-dimensional image is scanned. and an in-area area calculation circuit that integrates the measured area for each sampling area.

Here, the area information storage circuit refers to a semiconductor memory, a magnetic storage device, an optical storage device, etc. that stores information on two or more preset sampling areas within a two-dimensional image. Further, the information regarding the position of the sampling area may be, for example, a sampling area number stored for each scanning position of the two-dimensional image, or - information on the start of the sampling area within the scanning line and sampling It may also be information about the end of the area. Such information may be written in advance into the area information storage circuit by a microcomputer or the like, or may be configured to be set by a dip switch or the like. The sampling area may be set in any shape, or may be set in a predetermined shape, such as a rectangle, circle, or polygon.

The sampling area detection circuit is a circuit that detects when a set sampling area is being scanned, reads out information regarding the position stored in the area information storage circuit, and compares this with the scanning position. It is possible to consider a configuration that compares and determines whether or not it is within a set sampling area.

The in-line area measuring circuit is a circuit that measures the area of the image existing in the sampling area corresponding to the scanning position of the two-dimensional image for each scanning line. can be realized by a counter that counts the number of strokes for each scanning line. The number of such counters may be one, or the number of counters may be provided in accordance with the number of sampling areas.

The area information storage circuit is a circuit that integrates the area measured by the in-line area measuring circuit over the entire sampling area, and if a counter is provided for each sampling area, this counter is If you configure the system so that it continues counting as long as it is within the sampling area without clearing it every time, or if you use a smaller number of counters than the number of sampling areas, you can save the count value for each sampling area in the scanning line to memory, etc. The configuration may be such that the data is saved to 1 and then integrated later.

The area of the image for each sampling area obtained in this way may be displayed on a printer, a display, etc., or may be output as data to a sequencer, host computer, etc.

[Function] The image area measuring device of the present invention having the above configuration is a device that measures the area of an image within a sampling area, based on information regarding the positions of two or more sampling areas stored in the area information storage circuit. , if the current scanning position is within the set sampling area, this is detected by the sampling area detection circuit. When the scanning position is within the sampling area, the in-line area measuring circuit measures the area of the image for each scanning line, and the in-area area calculation circuit calculates the area of the image within the sampling area measured for each scanning line. Accumulate the area. Therefore, when one or more scans of the two-dimensional image are completed, the measurement of the area of the image for each sampling area is completed.

[Example] In order to further clarify the configuration and operation of the present invention described above, preferred embodiments of the image area measuring device of the present invention will be described below. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of this image area measuring device.

As shown in the figure, this image area measuring device manually receives a signal from a television camera 1 as an imaging means, measures the area of the image within a sampling area set within the captured image, and transmits the signal to a terminal. It is configured to display and output on 2. Inside thereof, a synchronization separation circuit 3, an image data extraction circuit 5, a binarization circuit 6, a vertical coordinate counter 7, a horizontal coordinate counter 8, N area counting circuits 10, and a logic operation circuit 20 are provided.

The television camera 1 uses a solid-state image sensor such as a CCD, and has 512 horizontal dots per frame.
It has a resolution of 495 lines in the vertical direction. The image signal from the television camera 1 is first input manually to a synchronization separation circuit 3 and an image data extraction circuit 5.

The image data extraction circuit 5 is a circuit that extracts image data from a manually inputted image signal, and is well known as an essential circuit for television receivers, so a description of its internal configuration will be omitted. The image data extraction circuit 5 extracts 5 -horizontal scanning lines.
The data is separated and extracted into 12 dots, and an analog signal corresponding to the density of each dot is output to the binarization circuit 6. The binarization circuit 6 compares this analog signal containing density information with a predetermined darkness value and converts it into a binarized signal. In this embodiment, the darkness value for binarization is a preset value, but the binarization may be performed using the optimum darkness value for each sampling area. The output of the binarization circuit 6 is output as dot data representing the presence or absence of an image to N area count circuits 100 dot data input terminals DD. Further, the image data extraction circuit 5 includes 51
One pulse signal for each data of two dots is output to the count input terminal Cin of the horizontal coordinate counter 8 and the dot enable terminal DE of the area counting circuit 10.

The synchronization separation circuit 3 separates a vertical synchronization signal (image start signal) and a horizontal synchronization signal included in the image signal from the image data, and the configuration of this circuit is also well known, so a description thereof will be omitted. An image start signal is sent from the synchronization separation circuit 3 to the reset terminal RES of the vertical coordinate counter 7.
ET, while a horizontal synchronizing signal is output to the count input terminal Cin of the vertical coordinate counter 8 and the reset terminal RESET of the horizontal coordinate counter 8.

Therefore, the vertical coordinate counter 7 is reset and starts counting by the image start signal output from the sync separation circuit 3, and is incremented by 495 per frame by the horizontal sync signal output from the sync separation circuit 3. On the other hand, the horizontal coordinate counter 8 is reset by the horizontal synchronization signal output from the synchronization separation circuit 3 and starts counting, and is incremented by 512 in one horizontal scan by the pulse signal output from the image data extraction circuit 4. .

Each count output of both these counters 7 and 8 is outputted to each area counting circuit 10. The N area counting circuits 10 are provided in accordance with the number N of sampling areas, and receive access from the logic operation circuit 20 via the bus in addition to the above-mentioned signals. The logic operation circuit 20 includes a well-known CPU 31. ROM32. The RAM 33 and the human output boat 35 are interconnected by a common bus 36. The CPU 31 reads data for setting the sampling area from the keyboard of the terminal device 2 connected via the human output boat 35, and displays the measured value of the image area in each sampling area on the display of the terminal device 2. do.

Next, the configuration and function of the area counting circuit 10 will be explained. The area counting circuits 1o all have the same configuration, and as shown in FIG.
1, an end data holding memory 43, two comparators 45 and 46, a two-person AND gate 48, a three-person AND game) 50, and a counter 52. The beginning data holding memory 41 and the end data holding memory 43 are configured as dual port RAMs, and the vertical coordinate data AY
Data corresponding to the start information and end information of the sampling area in the horizontal scanning line are respectively written to the addresses corresponding to . The written beginning data and end data are accessed and read using the count output from the vertical coordinate counter 7 as address data. As shown in Figure 3, the beginning data and end data are information about the number of dots in the horizontal scanning line with respect to the sampling area, and the area between both data is designated as the sampling area. .

Each data read from the beginning data holding memory 41 and the end data holding memory 43 is transferred to the comparator 45.
, 46 is inputted to one comparative human power A. Horizontal coordinate data AX, which is the output of the horizontal coordinate counter, is input to the comparison input B of the other of these comparators 45 and 46, and both data are compared by the comparators 45 and 46. The comparator 45 sets its output terminal A<B to a high level when the comparative human power B is larger than the comparative human power A, that is, when the horizontal coordinate data AX becomes larger than the beginning data, and the comparator 46 conversely sets the output terminal A<B to the horizontal coordinate data AX is smaller than the end data, its output terminal A
>B is set to high level.

Therefore, the output of the AND gate 48, which operates both outputs by two people, becomes high level when the horizontal coordinate data AX is greater than the beginning data and smaller than the end data, as shown in the timing chart of FIG. The output of this two-man AND gate 48 is connected to the one-man power of the three-man AND gate 50.

On the other hand, the other input terminal of this three-input AND gate is connected to a dot enable signal D output from the image data extraction circuit 5.
E and the dot data DD output from the binarization circuit 6 are manually generated. The dot data DD of the binarization circuit 6 is at a high level only in the section where an image exists, and the dot enable signal DE is repeatedly turned on and off for each image. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4, the output of the three-man power game 50 is turned on and off in accordance with the dot enable signal DE only in the region from the beginning data to the end data and in the section where the image exists.

This on/off signal is the clock C of the counter 52.
The counter δ2 counts up in response to this input signal. The count data of the counter 52 is read out by the CPtJ 31 via the bus 36. Note that the CPU 31 uses a counter clear terminal CL.
By accessing R, the counter 52 can be freely cleared to zero.

Each of the area counting circuits 10 configured as described above corresponds to a sampling area. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, when specifying sampling areas of various shapes, each horizontal scanning line of each sampling area is The beginning data and the end data are stored in advance in the logic operation circuit 2.
0 CPU 31 writes into predetermined areas of both memories 41 and 43 of the area counting circuit 10 corresponding to the sampling area. Since such data b writing processing is well known, its explanation will be omitted.

According to the image area measuring device of the present embodiment described above, when the scanning of the two-dimensional image captured by the television camera l is started, when the scanning position is within the sampling area, the area corresponding to the sampling area is The counting circuit 10 is activated and the number of pixels present in the image is counted by a counter 52 within the circuit. Therefore, when scanning of the two-dimensional image is completed, the counter 52 in each area counting circuit 10 counts the number of pixels corresponding to the area of the image within the sampling area. The CPU 31 reads this count data via the bus 36, converts it into an area, and displays it on the terminal 2.

As a result, the area of the image for each sampling area can be immediately known, and feature extraction work in image recognition can be performed easily and in a short time. Furthermore, the image area measuring device of this embodiment can set a sampling area of any shape, and can set the sampling area so that the image area can be measured in a shape that best represents the characteristics. Moreover, since the area measurement time is constant and fast regardless of the shape and number of sampling areas, no special consideration is required for setting the sampling area, and this contributes to improved workability.

In addition, since the image area measuring device of this embodiment has local optimization of the hardware, the configuration is extremely simple while achieving high speed.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the area counting circuit 100 employed in the second embodiment.

The image area measuring device of the second embodiment includes an area counting circuit 1
Except for the configuration of 00, the configuration is the same as that of the first embodiment.

In this embodiment, the setting of the sampling area is limited to a rectangle as shown in FIG. The scanning of the sampling area is performed using the coordinates of the starting point SO and the coordinates of the ending point SE. To this end, the area counting circuit 100 includes four comparators 102, 104, 106, 108 and a vertical coordinate, as shown in FIG.

Memories 112, 114 . that hold beginning data and end data for each horizontal coordinate. 118, a four-man AND gate 120 which ANDs the outputs of the four comparators 102 to 108, and the output signal of this recessed AND gate 120, the dot data DD, and the dot enable signal DE. Take three input AND gate 1
25 and a counter 130. Therefore, within the rectangle having the starting point SO and the ending point SE as diagonals, the output of the four-man AND gate 120 becomes active, and the number of pixels in which the image exists within this sampling area is counted.

The second embodiment described above provides substantially the same effects as the first embodiment, and has the advantage that, although the shape of the sampling area is limited to a rectangle, very little information regarding the sampling area is required. As a result, the device and configuration are simplified, and the time required to set data from the logical operation circuit 20 is shortened, which provides the advantage of further improving workability.

Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described.

The image area measuring device of the third embodiment differs from the devices of the first and second embodiments only in the configuration of the area counting circuit 200, and the other device configurations are the same. As shown in FIG. 8, the area counting circuit 200 of the image area measuring device of this embodiment includes a vertical coordinate designating circuit 210, a horizontal coordinate designating circuit 220, a plurality of two-person gates 225, and a counting circuit 230.
It consists of.

The vertical coordinate designation circuit 210 exclusively selects an output for each fixed range of vertical coordinates according to the output of the vertical coordinate counter 7, and can be constructed from a gate array, RAM, ROM, or the like.

In this embodiment, at least 16 ranges can be specified over 495 dots on the vertical coordinate. on the other hand,
The horizontal coordinate designation circuit 220 exclusively selects an output for each fixed range of horizontal coordinates according to the output of the horizontal coordinate counter 8, and can be configured similarly to the vertical coordinate designation circuit 210. In this embodiment, at least 16 ranges can be designated over 512 dots on the horizontal coordinate. Therefore, the outputs from the vertical coordinate designation circuit 210 and the horizontal coordinate designation circuit 220 are both 16.

Each of these 16 signal lines is connected to the inputs of 16 two-person gates 225.

Therefore, when a certain position is designated during scanning within a -frame, the output of the two-person gate 226 corresponding to the designation of the range including that position becomes active. Each output of the two-man AND gate 22δ is input to a counting circuit 230. Inside the count circuit 230, there is an AND gate that takes the logical product of the dot data DD, the dot enable signal DE, and the output signal of the AND gate 225 for each output of the two-man AND gate 225, and a counter that is counted by the output of this AND gate. As in the other embodiments, the number of pixels corresponding to the area of the image in each sampling area is counted.

According to the image area measuring device of this embodiment having the configuration described above, although the shape of the sampling area for measuring the image area is limited to a rectangle as in the second embodiment, the simple configuration allows The area of the image can be measured.

Although several embodiments of the present invention have been described above, the present invention is not limited to these embodiments.
In combination with a configuration in which binarization is performed at different binarization levels for each sampling area, the image area can be more precisely measured as a representative characteristic value representing the characteristics of the image.
It goes without saying that the invention can be implemented in various ways without departing from the gist of the invention.

As described in detail above, the image area measuring device of the present invention has the excellent effect of being able to measure the area of an image for each sampling area at extremely high speed. As a result, the image area that optimally captures the characteristics of the image can be measured extremely quickly, and the workability of image recognition can be significantly improved. Furthermore, since the device and configuration do not become unnecessarily complicated, manufacturing man-hours and costs can be reduced, and reliability and maintenance performance can be improved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an image area measuring device according to the first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
3 is an explanatory diagram showing the relationship between the shape of the sampling area and begin data◆end data, FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing an example of the operation of the area counting circuit 10, and FIG. is an explanatory diagram showing an example of setting the sampling area, FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the area counting circuit 100 of the second embodiment, and FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the sampling area, beginning data, and end data in the second embodiment. FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the area counting circuit 200 of the third embodiment, and FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating the conventional area measurement method. 1 ... Television camera 2 ... Terminal 3 ... Synchronization separation circuit 5 ... Image data extraction circuit 6 ... Binarization circuit 7 ... Vertical coordinate counter 8 ... Horizontal coordinate counter 10 ... Area counting circuit 20 ... Logical operation circuit

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An image area measuring device that measures the area of an image within a plurality of sampling areas set for a two-dimensional image for each sampling area, the device comprising: an area information storage circuit that stores information regarding positions of two or more sampling areas; and an area information storage circuit that stores information regarding positions of two or more sampling areas; a sampling area detection circuit that detects the area based on the scanning line; An image area measuring device comprising an area calculation circuit that integrates the area for each sampling area.