JPH05328198A - Television doorphone system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To display the video image of head of a visitor in front of a doorphone slave set at a gatedoor or the like almost in the center of a monitor television screen of a master set automatically regardless of the height of the visitor or its relative left/right position. CONSTITUTION:A couple of infrared ray sensors S are arranged respectively to upper/lower positions and left/right positions of a door phone slave set 2 and a comparator circuit 13 compares input levels from each of the sensors S due to a visitor. Thus, the relative position of its head is specified and the directive angle of TV camera 4 of the slave set 2 is driven by an image pickup section drive circuit and controlled by a camera angle control circuit 14 to that the video image of the head is placed almost in the center of the screen of monitor television receiver 16 of the master set 3.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a TV intercom system, and more particularly to a means for improving the composition of a monitor TV image.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A TV intercom is an intercom that can answer a call after confirming a visitor at a front door of a house or the like with a monitor TV image, and may not respond to an unnecessary visitor. It is possible and is widely used as an extremely convenient product. To confirm the visitor, the face (head) of the visitor is displayed in the center of the monitor TV screen of the indoor base unit.
It is intended to identify who is by displaying the image of, but in reality, a conventional TV camera of this type is usually installed at a height of about 140 to 150 cm above the ground. Since it is fixedly installed in the doorphone subunit, the image of the face does not always come to the center of the monitor screen due to the height of the visitor, and it is often difficult to check it because it protrudes from the screen. There was a case.

In order to solve these problems, a proposal for displaying the head image of the visitor in the substantial center of the monitor screen according to the height of the visitor is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-211953. There is. This is a method of actually observing the monitor screen of the indoor master unit and manually adjusting the direction of the TV camera on the slave unit side to a desired angle, which is extremely reliable, but for unfamiliar family members. There is also a problem that the operation is troublesome and the above-mentioned operation is started after the visitor is displayed, so that the response to the visitor is delayed accordingly.

For this reason, as means for automatically achieving these purposes, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-208383, a lens system having a wider field of view than the monitor screen display range is used in a monitor TV camera and its input is used. A method has been proposed in which a head image is displayed at an appropriate position on a screen by digitally converting an image and processing data that is temporarily stored.

[0005]

However, in the above proposal, a specific data processing for specifying a desired head portion in the wide field of view and displaying it at an appropriate position on the screen. The method is not clear.

Further, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 63-125082, a conventional fixed type image pickup device of a television camera of an intercom slave is rotatably arranged so that the image pickup range can be changed. A method has been proposed in which adjustment is provided to set an arbitrary imaging direction. However, in this proposed example, the inside of the TV camera body needs to be made to have a special specification, which causes a problem in manufacturing.

The present invention has been made in view of the problems of the conventional proposals as described above. By specifying the current position of the visitor, the head image of the visitor is automatically displayed on the monitor screen. It is intended to provide a means for displaying in the center.

[0008]

Therefore, according to the present invention, a television intercom system of this kind is provided with a slave unit equipped with a television camera for photographing a visitor such as a front door, and a photographed image thereof is displayed. In a TV door phone including a master unit equipped with a monitor TV for controlling the position, a plurality of sensor arrangements for detecting the two-dimensional relative position of the visitor with respect to the position of the TV camera, and a plurality of sensor arrangements of these sensors are provided. Data processing means for specifying the head position of the visitor by comparing the input levels of the visitors, and the head position image is automatically displayed in the substantially central portion of the monitor TV screen according to the specific position data. In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the camera drive and angle control means for directing the television camera to display It is intended.

[0009]

With the above system configuration, regardless of the height of the visitor or the left / right positional relationship within a predetermined range, the TV camera has a directivity angle of the visitor's head image on the monitor TV screen of the base unit. Since it operates so as to be automatically driven and controlled so as to be located in the substantially central part, it is possible to securely fix the visitor and there is no delay in handling.

[0010]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described below based on examples. FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of the configuration of an embodiment of this TV doorphone system, and FIG. 2 shows an example of a sensor arrangement for the doorphone handset.

(Structure) In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a TV intercom device, which is an intercom subunit 2 installed at a front door or the like.
And a base unit 3 installed indoors. The intercom subunit 2 includes a TV camera 4, a speaker 5, a microphone 6, and a push button 7 as an image pickup unit. 8 is an optical lens of the TV camera 4, 9 is an image pickup circuit, 10 is a camera signal processing circuit, 11 is a modulation / demodulation circuit, and 12 is a power supply circuit.

As shown in the example of FIG. 2, the present invention is characterized by a total of four infrared sensors S above and below and to the left and right of the intercom subunit 2 (only two of them are shown in FIG. 1).
Is arranged so that the two-dimensional relative position of the visitor at that time can be specified. 13 is an input (level) comparison circuit of each sensor S, 14 is a camera angle control circuit, 1
Reference numeral 5 denotes a photographing section drive circuit.

On the other hand, the indoor base unit 3 is a monitor television (CR) for displaying an image taken by the TV camera 4 of the handset unit 2.
T) 16, handset 17, and power supply circuit 18. Further, 19 is a video interface circuit, 20 is a video signal processing circuit, 21 is a modulation / demodulation circuit, 22 is a voice signal processing circuit of the microphone 6 of the handset 2 and the handset 17 of the base unit 2,
Reference numeral 3 indicates a control circuit.

(Operation) Next, the operation will be described. When a visitor to the entrance or the like presses the call button 7 of the slave unit 2, the signal is transmitted to the master unit 3 through the route of the modulation / demodulation circuit 11 → transmission line 24 → translation / demodulation circuit 21 → control circuit 23. Control circuit 2 of base unit 3
3 supplies power through the route of the power supply circuit 18 → transmission path 24 → power supply circuit 12, and the power supply circuits 18 and 12 supply power to respective parts of the master unit 3 and the slave unit 2, respectively. The part is changed from the standby state to the operating state.

On the other hand, the output of each infrared sensor S is converted into data in the input level comparison circuit 13, and the modulation / demodulation circuit 11 → transmission line 24 → modulation / demodulation circuit 21 → control circuit 2
It is transmitted to the parent device 3 through the route of No. 3. Control circuit 23 of base unit 3
Transmits the camera angle control signal to the slave unit 2 through the path of the modulation / demodulation circuit 21 → transmission path 24 → modulation / demodulation circuit 11 → camera angle control circuit 14 based on predetermined data given in advance. In response to this, the camera angle control circuit 14 operates the image pickup section drive circuit 15, changes the directivity angle of the TV camera 4 of the image pickup section including the lens 8 by a known conventional mechanism, etc. It operates so as to point to the head of the visitor whose position has been specified, and is automatically operated so that the image is located in the approximate center of the monitor television 16. It should be noted that the processing of the audio signal and the video signal conforms to the general example of the related art, and thus the duplicate description will be omitted.

(Other Embodiments) In the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, a total of four infrared sensors S, one each on the upper / lower side and on the left / right side, are arranged for identifying the position of the visitor. The point is that since the relative two-dimensional position can be specified, the number of door intercom slaves 2 is not limited to four in the example of the figure, and as shown in, for example, FIG. It is permissible to arrange a total of three sensors S in a triangular shape on the outside or the inside of the child device 2 so as to be located at the center thereof. Further, it is not limited to infrared rays, but may be a microphone or other type of sensor, for example.

[0017]

As described above, according to the TV door intercom system of the present invention, the head image of the visitor is always displayed on the monitor TV screen regardless of the height of the visitor or the left / right positional relationship within the predetermined range. Since the TV camera automatically controls the pointing angle so that it comes to almost the center, it is convenient for checking the visitors, and no troublesome operation is required, so there is no fear of delays in handling.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of an embodiment system.

FIG. 2 An example of the sensor arrangement

FIG. 3 is another example of sensor arrangement.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 TV intercom device 2 Doorphone slave unit 3 Indoor master unit 4 TV camera 13 Sensor input level comparison circuit 14 Camera angle control circuit 15 Imaging unit drive circuit 16 Monitor TV (CRT) S Infrared sensor

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A TV door phone comprising a slave unit equipped with a TV camera for photographing a visitor such as a front door, and a master unit equipped with a monitor TV for displaying the photographed image. In order to identify the head position by comparing the input level of the visitor of each of these sensors with a plurality of sensor arrangements for detecting the two-dimensional relative position of the television camera position in the vertical and horizontal directions. Data processing means, and camera drive and angle control means for orienting the television camera so that the head position image is automatically displayed substantially in the center of the monitor television screen in accordance with the specific position data. A TV door phone system characterized by being equipped.