Method and System of Simultaneously Displaying Multiple Views for Video Surveillance

Abstract

Methods and systems of transmitting a plurality of views from a video camera are disclosed. The camera captures a plurality of views from the lens and scales the view to a specified size. Each view can correspond to a separate virtual camera view of a region of interest and separately controlled. The camera composites at least a portion of the plurality of views into one or more views within the camera, and then transmits one or more of the views from the video camera to a base station for compositing views from the camera into a single view within the base station. Cameras can be grouped into a network, with network addresses assigned to the camera and any virtual cameras generated therein.

1 . A method of transmitting a plurality of views from a video camera comprising:
 (a) capturing a scene in a wide-angle video camera and extracting at least two views of a possible plurality of views;   (b) scaling the plurality of extracted views to independently and respectively specified sizes, where each view is a geometry corrected wide-angle view of a region of interest selectively extracted from one of a plurality of places within the wide-angle view, each independently scaled and each corresponding to an independently controlled virtual camera;   (c) compositing at least a portion of the plurality of views into one or more views to form a composite video which includes multiple different views according to step (b) selectively superimposed, adjacent, or tiled, which can include selecting at least one region of interest from within the wide-angle view;   (d) whereby a compositing of superimposed, adjacent, or tiled views can be accomplished by the camera, or by a base station using a plurality of composited views, wherein the base station supports a surveillance monitor able to display the at least two views simultaneously, superimposed, adjacent, or tiled, and individually scaled as selected, and selectively positioned in the framed view of the monitor.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein one or more views from the video cameras are transmitted on a network to a single or multiple base stations. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein one or more views from the video camera are composited into a single view within the base station. 
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein one view underlies other superimposed, adjacent, or tiled views and the underlying view is a wide-angle and the superimposed, adjacent, or tiled views are close-up. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein one view underlies other superimposed, adjacent, or tiled views and the underlying view is a close-up and the superimposed, adjacent, or tiled views are wide-angle. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the views are tiled such that one does not obscure another. 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the views are tiled such that some may obscure others. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the quantity, size, and position of views within the composite frame is determined by the camera independently for each view. 
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the quantity, size, and position of views within the composited frame is determined by the base station. 
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the base station requests the views from more than one camera and composites the views. 
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the camera broadcasts some or all of the views to a plurality of base stations. 
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the camera scales a view to a single size and broadcasts it and the base stations completes scaling to the required size. 
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein parameters that control the composition in the camera are varied using a coupled base station control. 
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein parameters that control the compositing in base station may change with time. 
   
   
       15 . A digital video camera system, comprising:
 at least one video camera capturing a geometry distorted view of a scene using a wide-angle lens;   digitally selectively extracted multiple region of interest views, each corresponding to a different implemented virtual camera centered on a different portion of the scene, and digitally processing image data of the views to composite into separate frame images, each individually scaled to a specified size, and correct the geometry of the captured scene and extracted images, and transmit the corrected view and images in a digital signal; and   selectively displayed multiple corrected extracted images corresponding to multiple virtual cameras, and the scene from multiple video cameras, as selectively superimposed, adjacent, or tiled images, and able to composite selected images and scenes from different video and virtual cameras for display;   whereby all the captured scene image data is viewable simultaneously with the extracted views on a surveillance monitoring display.   
   
   
       16 . The system of  claim 15 , further comprising:
 a base station coupled to the at least one video camera and at least one additional video camera and selectively displaying and controlling the views of all the coupled cameras.   
   
   
       17 . The system of  claim 15 , further comprising: a base station controlling the views extracted. 
   
   
       18 . The system of  claim 15 , further comprising: a base station controlling quantity, position, and size of the displayed images. 
   
   
       19 . A video camera system, comprising:
 at least one video camera capturing a geometry distorted view of scene using a wide-angle lens;   selectively extracted multiple views centered on multiple points in the scene and electronically processing the view data to composite into separate frame images, each view image data set independently scaled to a specified size from a different implemented virtual pan-tilt-zoom camera;   wherein corrected captured scene image data is viewable simultaneously with the corrected extracted views as selectively superimposed, tiled, or adjacent images that can simultaneously include images and scenes from different wide-angle video cameras.   
   
   
       20 . The system of  claim 19 , further comprising:
 a coupled base station coupled to at least one video camera and selectively displaying and controlling the views of all the coupled cameras.   
   
   
       21 - 32 . (canceled)