JPH10186550A - Stereoscopic image pickup device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain an image signal for stereoscopic vision by the use of two general specification cameras by deviating a display position by either TV camera through a delay circuit and aligning it with the display position by the other TV camera. SOLUTION: For example, when a display unit where data for left and right eyes are displayed in every frame as a display unit and which is operated from the top to the bottom is rotated counterclockwise by 90 deg. and used, a vertical synchronizing signal VD being a start signal in the vertical direction of a screen out of a horizontal synchronizing signal HD and the vertical synchronizing signal VD outputted from the master camera 1 passes the delay circuit 3 and is delayed by a specified time, and transmitted to the slave camera 2. Then, the respective video signals of the cameras 1 and 2 are synthesized by a synthesis circuit 4. Thus, the video output timing of the camera 2 is delayed further than the camera 1 and the display positions on a display picture are aligned equivalently between the video output from the camera 1 and the image of an interest point in the deviated image.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a stereoscopic image photographing apparatus for a display which displays images for the left eye and the right eye and performs stereoscopic display.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in order to match images of a point of interest in images taken by two cameras, the optical axes of two cameras are crossed, or the optical axes of a lens and an image sensor are shifted. Means such as tilting were taken.

As a three-dimensional television system, Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-6992 discloses displaying a stereoscopic image on a display provided with a lenticular lens plate.
According to the publication, a plurality of scanning lines of a television image obtained by imaging one subject from multiple directions are respectively accommodated in one lens pitch of a lenticular plate. Is generated at a 1 / N period of the field period 1 / F of the input video signal. Assuming that the number of vertical scanning lines per field of the camera is M, the vertical synchronizing signal V is generated at a period of V = 1 / (NMF), and generates a vertical synchronizing signal having a phase shift by V / N time intervals. To display the video signal of each camera. In this system, the horizontal,
This shows that the vertical scan line structure needs to be changed by 90 degrees.

[0004]

However, in the above conventional example, optical distortion occurs, a mechanical drive mechanism is required, or an A / D / D / A converter, a field memory, and a switch circuit are required. However, there is a problem that a dedicated camera is required, and a general-purpose camera which is commercially available at a low cost cannot be used as it is.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to obtain an image signal for stereoscopic viewing using two cameras of general specifications. Here, the general specification camera is a general commercially available VTR.
It is an integrated camera or low-cost camera, and does not include a studio camera.

[0006]

According to the present invention, there are provided two TV cameras, a synchronization circuit for generating a synchronization signal for the TV cameras, a delay circuit for delaying the synchronization signal of one of the TV cameras, In a stereoscopic image photographing apparatus comprising a synthesizing circuit for synthesizing video outputs of two TV cameras, a left-eye image and a right-eye image are switched for each field, and the display position of a subject is changed by the TV camera via the delay circuit. Is shifted to match the display position of the other TV camera.

According to the present invention, a first TV camera having a built-in synchronization circuit and a second TV camera having an external synchronization of the synchronization circuit are provided.
A delay circuit for delaying a synchronization signal of a synchronization circuit of the first TV camera in accordance with a distance between a subject of interest and the second TV camera; And a synthesizing circuit for synthesizing and outputting the respective video outputs of the first and second TV cameras. To obtain an image signal to be displayed three-dimensionally.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings together with each embodiment.

(First Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a TV camera (master) operated by an internal synchronization signal, 2 denotes a TV camera (slave) operated by an external synchronization signal, and 3 denotes a delay circuit for delaying a vertical synchronization signal in the synchronization signal. is there. 4
Is a synthesizing circuit for synthesizing the signals of the two cameras and sending them to the display. Reference numeral 5 denotes a photographed object as a subject.

In this embodiment, data for the left eye and right eye are displayed for each frame as a display, and the display which scans from top to bottom is used by rotating it counterclockwise by 90 °.

In FIG. 1, a VD signal which is a start signal in a vertical direction of a screen among an HD (horizontal synchronization) signal and a VD (vertical synchronization) signal of a synchronization signal output from a master camera 1 passes through a delay circuit 3. The vertical synchronization signal is sent to the slave camera 2 with a delay of a predetermined time. Then, the video signals of the master camera 1 and the slave camera 2 are synthesized by the synthesis circuit 4. Thereby, the slave camera 2
The video output timing of the master camera 1 is later than that of the master camera 1, and the video output of the slave camera 2 is equivalently shifted from the video output of the master lens 1 in the horizontal direction on the display image.

FIG. 2 shows an example of an image display.
And the video output of the slave camera 2
In addition, since the image is rotated by 90 degrees depending on the display image of the display, the left is a normal upper side and the right is a lower side.

FIG. 2A is an image taken by the master camera 1 and the object of the object 5 can be seen from the right. (B) is an image taken by the slave camera 2 and the object is seen leftward as compared with (a). If the image signals in both figures are combined as they are, the images are doubled and do not match as shown in (c).

On the other hand, if the vertical synchronizing signal of the slave camera 2 is delayed, the start of scanning is delayed and the image of the slave camera 2 shifts to the right on the display image equivalently, as shown in FIG. I do.

FIG. 3 is a timing chart showing detailed waveforms of the HD and VD signals. According to the figure, the upper timing chart details the connection between field II and field I. 9H of the VD signal indicates the equalization pulse, vertical synchronization pulse and equalization pulse in the vertical retrace period. The lower timing chart shows the connection between the field I and the field II in detail.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the delay circuit. FIG.
In the figure, reference numeral 5 denotes a PLL oscillation circuit, and 2 of the input HD signal
Output twice the frequency. 6 is a shift register, VD
The signal is delayed by twice the HD signal. A selector 7 selects a delay amount corresponding to the distance between the target object and each camera and sends it to the slave camera. Further, in order to change the delay amount by the selector according to the observation position of the image display observer, an external delay amount control signal may be input.

According to this embodiment, the synchronization signal of one of the two general specification cameras is delayed by a simple delay circuit for a predetermined time in accordance with the distance between the object of interest and the camera.
In addition, since the display is rotated by 90 ° on the display, the left and right positional deviation can be eliminated on the display, and the stereoscopic image can be observed.

In the above-described embodiment, the lack of an image due to the delay time may occur at the start of the field signal of the image signal of the right camera. In this case, the missing image is replaced with the other camera. May be substituted.

(Second Embodiment) In the case of performing a three-dimensional display in a normal use without rotating the display, it is necessary to shift the screen in the horizontal direction, so that it is necessary to delay both the HD and VD signals. . The configuration is as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 5, a delay circuit 8 receives an HD signal and a VD signal from the master camera 1 and
Because it rotates 0 °, it is delayed by 1 / 4H, and this 1 / 4H
A delayed HD signal and a VD signal obtained by delaying the VD signal based on the HD signal by a predetermined time corresponding to the distance to the object of interest are output.

In the above description, the left camera uses an internal synchronization type camera and the right camera uses an external synchronization type. However, as shown in FIG. 6, if a camera synchronization signal generator is prepared separately, It is also possible to use two external synchronization type cameras. In FIG. 6, the reference signal HD and the signal VD are generated by the synchronization signal generator 9 and supplied to the master camera 1 of the left camera. Also, this H
The D signal and the VD signal are input to the delay circuit 10, and the same HD signal and VD signal as those of the delay circuit 8 shown in the second embodiment are obtained and supplied to the slave camera 2 of the right camera. Thus, as described in the first embodiment, the video outputs of the master and slave cameras are combined by the combining circuit 4 and output to the display. Thus, by displaying on the display, a predetermined stereoscopic image signal can be observed.

When a plurality of N cameras are used, the cameras are not assigned to the left-eye camera and the right-eye camera, and each camera is switched every frame / N. Then, N delay signals are prepared, a synchronization signal is supplied to each camera while sequentially delaying from the reference camera, and a combined video output obtained by combining the video signals from each camera is obtained. As a display for this composite video signal, for example, the display described in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-6992 may be used.

[0023]

As described above, according to the present invention,
By using an inexpensive and generally available camera as it is and adding a simple delay circuit and a synthesizing circuit for synthesizing the video output of the camera, a stereoscopic imaging device can be configured without performing any particular image processing. . In this way, in the stereoscopic image display, the stereoscopic image can be displayed to the observer even if one of the image signals is rotated by 90 ° or not.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a display screen on which an image is synthesized according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a timing chart of general HD and VD signals.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a delay circuit according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of a delay circuit according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is another configuration diagram of the delay circuit in the use of the same type of camera according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Left-eye camera (internal synchronization) 2 Right-eye camera (external synchronization) 3 Synchronous signal delay circuit 4 Image output synthesizing circuit 5 PLL circuit 6 Shift register 7 Selector 8 Delay circuit 9 Synchronous signal generator 10 Delay circuit

Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Tsutomu Osaka 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Inside Canon Inc.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. Two TV cameras, a synchronizing circuit for generating a synchronizing signal of the TV cameras, a delay circuit for delaying the synchronizing signal of one of the TV cameras, and a video output of the two TV cameras. A synthesizing circuit for synthesizing, switching between the image for the left eye and the image for the right eye for each field, shifting the display position of the subject from the horizontal position of the TV camera via the delay circuit to the display position of the other TV camera A stereoscopic image photographing apparatus characterized by matching. 2. A first TV camera having a built-in synchronization circuit, a second TV camera having an external synchronization of the synchronization circuit, and a synchronization signal of a synchronization circuit of the first TV camera being transmitted to a subject of interest and the second TV camera. A delay circuit for delaying in accordance with the distance from the TV camera, and a synchronization signal of the delay circuit to the second TV.
A synthesizing circuit for synthesizing the respective video outputs of the first and second TV cameras and supplying the same to the camera, and switching between the left-eye image and the right-eye image for each field for stereoscopic display. A three-dimensional image photographing apparatus characterized by obtaining: