ITER CODAC interface for the visible and infra-red wide angle viewing cameras

The amount of data generated by the infra-red and visible cameras at ITER is expected to be considerably larger than most diagnostics. ITER will have 12 infra-red cameras plus 12 visible cameras in four different equatorial port plugs. Each of the ports will have a Plant System Host (PSH) that will provide a standard image of the plant system to the ITER's Control and Data Access and Communication (CODAC) system.The two key functions of these cameras will be the scientific exploitation with the detection of interesting physics events and the operational protection of the machine, namely the first wall. Already assuming high bandwidth requirements for both audio and video, ITER will provide a separate network for this kind of communication, which will be used to transmit both the experimental and informational data provided by the cameras.This paper presents the current camera plant system design and its interaction with ITER CODAC system and networks. Starting from the camera specifications several alternatives for data collection and compression are discussed. The required inputs from CODAC and a first specification for the internal finite state machine are also presented. Finally, a possible hardware straw man design solution for the plant system hardware is proposed.     

基于PCI总线的视频监控系统设计

介绍了一种基于TI TMS320DM642的PCI总线的视频监控系统的设计和实现,它可实时处理两路模拟摄像机数据或两路IP摄像机数据,对系统软硬件构成进行了分析,在TI的IOM硬件驱动模型上用RF5架构进行了系统任务调度,试验结果表明该系统能实时对多路图像数据运行监控算法,并将监控结果通过PCI总线传送给主机,可方便完成本地存储和远程监控,为各种视频监控算法提供了有效的软硬件平台。     

基于参数分离机器人手眼视觉标定方法研究

提出一种简单,快速、不需要标定摄像机内外部参数的标定方法。详细推导了机器人平面手眼视觉系统变换关系,完成了从视觉平面坐标系到机器人参考坐标系的坐标变换。通过参数分离简化求解过程,实践表明这种方法求解速度快、精度高。     

基于两条平行线段的摄像机标定

提出了一种基于空间平行线段的摄像机标定算法和理论. 1)当两条平行线段的比值已知时: a)该平行线段的$n$幅图像可提供关于摄像机内参数的2(n-1)个二次约束方程; b)如果图像极点同时也是已知的,则该平行线段的n幅图像可提供关于摄像机内参数的5n-6个约束方程,其中3(n-1)个为二次约束,n-2个为三次约束,n-1个为四次约束. 2)当两条平行线段的比值未知时,则该平行线段的n幅图像可提供关于摄像机内参数的2n-3个约束方程,其中n-2个为四次约束, n-1个为六次约束.在理论分析的基础上,本文给出了摄像机标定的具体算法.模拟实验和真实图像实验均证明了本文方法的可行性.另外,鉴于在很多真实场景中均存在平行线段,因此本文所得到的结果不仅具有理论意义而且也有一定的实用价值.     

3DS MAX中体视动画生成模块的实现

介绍了体视动画的生成方法，讨论了如何基于流行的三维动画软件3DS MAX开发体视动画的生成模块。最后给出了建筑动态模拟体视动画中的一帧图像。     

Optimal camera placement for accurate reconstruction

Three-dimensional (3D) measurements can be recovered from several views by triangulation. This paper deals with the problem of where to place the cameras in order to obtain a minimal error in the 3D measurements, also called camera network design in photogrammetry. We pose the problem in terms of an optimization design, dividing it into two main components: (1) an analytical part dedicated to the analysis of error propagation from which a criterion is derived, and (2) a global optimization process to minimize this criterion. In this way, the approach consists of an uncertainty analysis applied to the reconstruction process from which a covariance matrix is computed. This matrix represents the uncertainty of the detection from which the criterion is derived. Moreover, the optimization has discontinuities due to the presence of occluding surfaces between the viewpoint and the object point group, which leads to a combinatorial optimization process. These aspects are solved using a multi-cellular genetic algorithm. Experimental results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the solution.     

Automatic registration of laser reflectance and colour intensity images for 3D reconstruction

The objective of the work presented in this paper is to generate complete, high-resolution models of real world scenes from passive intensity images and active range sensors. In previous work, an automatic method has been developed in order to compute 3D models of real world scenes from laser range data. The aim of this project is to improve these existing models by fusing range and intensity data. The paper presents different techniques in order to find correspondences between the different sets of data. Based on these control points, a robust camera calibration is computed with a minimal user intervention in order to avoid the fastidious point and click phase that is still necessary in many systems. The intensity images are then re-projected into the laser coordinate frame to produce an image that combines the laser reflectance and the available video intensity images into a colour texture map.     

A machine vision system for enhancing the teleoperation of an industrial robot

This paper describes a real-time vision system that enhances the teleoperation of a servicing tool used in the heat exchangers of nuclear power plants. The vision system is used to track the position of the tool as it moves over a sheet of tube ends. A map-based strategy is adopted for the estimation of the position. The system incorporates a novel method for a foreshortening correction that is applied prior to map referencing. A hypothesize and verify scheme locates two image features that correspond to two map features. An efficient scheme for extracting image features is developed to locate these two features (tube-end centers) in the image. Two different types of heat-exchanger tube sheets are accounted for. They are those with tube ends placed in a square grid and those with tube ends placed in a triangular grid. The map-based strategy minimizes the cumulative errors in the estimate of the tool head position. The resulting low-cost system has been tested on synthetic and real data. Performance results are given.     

Towards the recovery of extrinsic camera parameters from video records of sewer surveys

The aim of the work reported here is the recovery, from a single image taken inside a roughly cylindrical brick sewer pipe of diameter up to one meter, of the pose of the camera relative to the central axis of the pipe. It is shown that the vanishing point associated with the longitudinal mortar lines carries valuable information about the pose. A method for the automatic detection of this point is presented and used to analyse the camera rotations underlying a number of sewer survey videos. It is similarly shown how the angles between the images of the longitudinal lines can be used to recover information about camera pose. The techniques might form an active part of a more comprehensive image understanding system recovering the three-dimensional shape of a surveyed pipe from survey videos and/or be used as an experimental tool during the design of such a system. Received: 24 June 1997 / Accepted: 17 March 1998     

Camera calibration for a mobile robot prototype

Stereovision is an effective technique to use a CCD video camera to determine the 3D position of a target object from two or more simultaneous views of the scene. Camera calibration is a central issue in finding the position of objects in a stereovision system. This is usually carried out by calibrating each camera independently, and then applying a geometric transformation of the external parameters to find the geometry of the stereo setting. After calibration, the distance of various target objects in the scene can be calculated with CCD video cameras, and recovering the 3D structure from 2D images becomes simpler. However, the process of camera calibration is complicated. Based on the ideal pinhole model of a camera, we describe formulas to calculate intrinsic parameters that specify the correct camera characteristics, and extrinsic parameters that describe the spatial relationship between the camera and the world coordinate system. A simple camera calibration method for our CCD video cameras and corresponding experiment results are also given. This work was presented in part at the 7th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 16–18, 2002