Camera and image transmission method

Abstract

The invention provides a camera and an image transmission method. The camera comprises an infrared thermal image sensor, a processor and an interface module. The infrared thermography sensor is configured to generate raw sensing data. The processor is configured to process the raw sensing data and generate an invisible light image having a pixel data size of one bit group and a plurality of temperature data having a unit data size of two bit groups. The interface module comprises a plurality of transmission interfaces and is configured to transmit a heterogeneous image of which the pixel data size is three bit groups through one of the plurality of transmission interfaces, wherein the bit values of the three bit groups are bit values of one bit group and a linear combination of the bit values of two bit groups. The processor combines the invisible light image and a plurality of temperature data according to the red-green-blue color model channel to obtain a heterogeneous image with a visible light image format. Therefore, the invention can achieve the effects of greatly reducing the development complexity and saving the operation cost.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to a camera, and more particularly to a camera for non-visible light and an image transmission method thereof. Background Art

[0002] The image types output by a camera are divided into visible light images and non-visible light images (or infrared thermal sensing images) according to the type of its sensor. The image format of visible light images has been standardized, and technicians follow standard documents to process and transmit visible light images. However, no standard format has been established for non-visible light images. When the camera outputs non-visible light images, technicians have no standard to follow to develop related functions.

[0003] Accordingly, how to simplify the complexity of image processing and transmission in an environment of non-standard format images or data is the technical problem to be solved by the present invention. Summary of the Invention

[0004] An object of the present invention is to provide a camera, including an infrared thermal imaging sensor, a processor, and an interface module. The processor is coupled to the infrared thermal imaging sensor and the interface module. The infrared thermal imaging sensor is configured to generate raw sensing data. The processor is configured to process the raw sensing data and generate a non-visible light image with a pixel data size of one byte and a plurality of temperature data with a unit data size of two bytes. The interface module includes a plurality of transmission interfaces and is configured to transmit a heterogeneous image with a pixel data size of three bytes through one of the plurality of transmission interfaces, wherein the bit values of the three bytes are a linear combination of the bit values of one byte and the bit values of two bytes. The processor is configured to combine the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data according to the red-green-blue color model channels to obtain a heterogeneous image with a visible light image format.

[0005] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the non-visible light image includes a plurality of pixels, and the plurality of temperature data respectively correspond to the plurality of pixels. The processor is configured to respectively combine a k-th pixel of the non-visible light image and the temperature data corresponding to the k-th pixel into the k-th pixel of the heterogeneous image, so that the pixel data size of each pixel of the heterogeneous image is the three bytes, where k is a positive integer less than or equal to the resolution of the heterogeneous image.

[0006] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the processor is configured to place a pixel of the non-visible light image at a channel position of one of the red-green-blue color model channels and place the temperature data corresponding to the pixel of the non-visible light image at the channel positions of the other two of the red-green-blue color model channels and perform combination to obtain a pixel of the heterogeneous image.

[0007] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the RGB color model channels include a red color channel, a green color channel, and a blue color channel, each having a color channel bit size; wherein the pixel data size of the non-visible light image is equal to the color channel bit size and the unit data size of the temperature data is twice the color channel bit size.

[0008] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the two bytes of the temperature data include a first part and a second part, and the processor is configured to calculate a linear combination of the bit values of the first part and the second part of each temperature data as part of the three bytes of the heterogeneous image.

[0009] According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for image transmission for a camera is disclosed. The camera includes an infrared thermal imager, a processor, and an interface module, wherein the processor is coupled to the infrared thermal imager and the interface module. The image transmission method includes: generating raw sensing data through the infrared thermal imager; processing the raw sensing data through the processor to generate a non-visible light image with a pixel data size of one byte and a plurality of temperature data with a unit data size of two bytes; combining the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data according to the RGB color model channels through the processor to obtain a heterogeneous image with a pixel data size of three bytes and a visible light image format, wherein the bit values of the three bytes are a linear combination of the bit values of one byte and the bit values of two bytes; and transmitting the heterogeneous image through one of the plurality of transmission interfaces of the interface module.

[0010] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the non-visible light image includes a plurality of pixels, and the plurality of temperature data respectively correspond to the plurality of pixels. The step of combining the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data to obtain the heterogeneous image includes: respectively combining a k-th pixel of the non-visible light image and the temperature data corresponding to the k-th pixel into the k-th pixel of the heterogeneous image, so that the pixel data size of each pixel of the heterogeneous image is the three bytes, where k is a positive integer less than or equal to the resolution of the heterogeneous image.

[0011] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the step of combining the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data to obtain the heterogeneous image includes: placing a pixel of the non-visible light image at the channel position of one of the RGB color model channels and placing the temperature data corresponding to the pixel of the non-visible light image at the channel positions of the other two of the RGB color model channels and combining them to obtain a pixel of the heterogeneous image.

[0012] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the RGB color model channels include a red color channel, a green color channel, and a blue color channel, each having a color channel bit size; wherein the pixel data size of the non-visible light image is equal to the color channel bit size, and the unit data size of each of the temperature data is twice the color channel bit size.

[0013] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the two bytes of the temperature data include a first part and a second part. The step of combining the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data to obtain the heterogeneous image further includes: calculating a linear combination of the bit values of the first part and the second part of each of the temperature data as a part of the three bytes of the heterogeneous image.

[0014] As can be seen from the above solutions, the advantages of the present invention are as follows:

[0015] The camera and image transmission method of the present invention do not require two or more transmission interfaces to separately transmit the non-visible light image of the camera and its corresponding data. Only one transmission interface is needed to transmit two or more different types of data and images. The camera and image transmission method of the present invention are applicable to data of various data formats and images of image formats. Therefore, users do not need to develop firmware or software development kits (SDK) by themselves, and can transmit non-standard format images and temperature data to the receiving end through standardized image formats, greatly reducing the development complexity and saving operation costs. In addition, the camera and image transmission method of the present invention do not require substantial compression of the image, so the information of the image is retained and the problem of distortion is avoided. Description of the Drawings

[0016] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of the data format of the image captured by the visible light camera and the transmission interface applied to each data format and the communication protocol corresponding to the transmission interface;

[0017] Figure 2 A schematic diagram of the sensing data generated by the infrared camera and the transmission interface and communication protocol that can be applied to its data format;

[0018] Figure 3 A block diagram of the camera illustrated according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0019] Figure 4 A flowchart of the image transmission method for a camera illustrated according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0020] Figure 5 A schematic diagram of analyzing the original sensing data illustrated according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0021] Figure 6 Schematic diagram of combining non-visible light images and temperature data according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0022] Figure 7 Schematic diagram of a heterogeneous image with a visible light image format obtained after combining non-visible light images and temperature data according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0023] Figure 8 Schematic diagram of an image generated by a camera, temperature data, and a suitable transmission interface according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0024] Wherein, reference numerals:

[0025] 100: Visible light camera;

[0026] 105: Image;

[0027] 115: Image format;

[0028] 120: Transmission interface;

[0029] 125: Communication protocol;

[0030] 200: Infrared camera;

[0031] 205: Image;

[0032] 210: Temperature data;

[0033] 215: Image format;

[0034] 220: Data format;

[0035] 225, 230: Transmission interfaces;

[0036] 235, 240: Communication protocols;

[0037] 300: Camera;

[0038] 310: Infrared thermal imaging sensor;

[0039] 320: Processor;

[0040] 330: Interface module;

[0041] 510: Original sensed data;

[0042] 520: Temperature data;

[0043] 530: Non-visible light image;

[0044] 612, 632: Pixels of the non-visible light image;

[0045] 614, 634: Temperature data;

[0046] 616a, 636a: Least significant bit;

[0047] 616b, 636b: Most significant bit;

[0048] 618, 638: Pixels of a heterogeneous image;

[0049] 710: Non-visible light image;

[0050] 720: Temperature data;

[0051] 730: Heterogeneous image;

[0052] 800: Camera;

[0053] 805: Heterogeneous image;

[0054] 815: Image format;

[0055] 820: Transmission interface;

[0056] 825: Communication protocol;

[0057] S410 - S440: Steps. Detailed implementation manners

[0058] The present invention will be further described below in conjunction with the drawings and embodiments, so that those skilled in the technical field to which the present invention belongs can better understand the present invention and implement it accordingly. However, the embodiments given are not intended to limit the present invention.

[0059] Please refer to Figure 1 , which is a schematic diagram of the data format of the image captured by a visible light camera and the transmission interface applied to each data format and the communication protocol corresponding to the transmission interface. The visible light camera 100 can sense visible light and generate an image 105. The image 105 is a visible light image, which is a standardized image. Its standardized image format 115 includes the YUV (Luma, Chrominance, and Chroma) format, the RGB image channel format, the raw data format, etc., but is not limited thereto.

[0060] The visible light camera 100 includes a plurality of transmission interfaces 120, and each transmission interface 120 transmits the image 105 through a corresponding communication protocol 125. For example, the transmission interfaces 120 include Universal Serial Bus (USB), Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI), Ethernet, and interfaces applied to Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) sensors, etc., but are not limited thereto.

[0061] The image 105 is a visible light image and has a standardized image format. The visible light camera 100 can transmit the standardized image 105 to a receiving end (not shown in the figure) through an industrial standard transmission interface 120 and a communication protocol 125. Figure 1 The connection between the image format 115 and the transmission interface 120 represents the applicability of various image formats 115 and various transmission interfaces 120. For example, the visible light camera 100 can transmit the image 105 with the image format 115 being the YUV format through the transmission interfaces 120 of USB, MIPI, Ehternet, or CMOS. However, even though the image format 115 and the transmission interface 120 of the visible light camera 100 have been standardized, the data format of non-visible light images has not been standardized. For users, they cannot use the standardized image format 115 and transmission interface 120 to transmit data other than visible light images. In the case where the visible light camera 100 is replaced with an infrared sensor, the camera 100 must provide a dedicated driver or software development kit for the receiving end to process the images generated by the infrared sensor.

[0062] Please refer to Figure 2 , which is a schematic diagram of the transmission interfaces and communication protocols that can be used for the sensing data and its data format generated by an infrared camera. The infrared camera 200 can sense infrared light and generate sensing data. The infrared camera 200 is, for example, an infrared thermal camera. The sensing data includes an image 205 and temperature data 210. Since the sensing data of the infrared thermal camera is not in a standardized data format, even though the image format 215 of the image 205 can be processed into the YUV format, RGB image channel format, or raw data format, the data format 220 of the temperature data 210 has not been standardized (Proprietary), and camera manufacturers can develop and design it by themselves, resulting in a lack of consistency in the data format 220 among different manufacturers.

[0063] In addition, similar to the above description, Figure 2 The connection between the image format 215 and the transmission interface 225 represents the applicability of various image formats 215 and various transmission interfaces 225, and the connection between the data format 220 and the transmission interface 230 represents the applicability of the data format 220 and various transmission interfaces 230.

[0064] Generally speaking, the infrared camera 200 can transmit the image 205 and the temperature data 210 through the transmission interfaces 225 and 230 respectively. In other words, the infrared camera 200 needs to be provided with two or more of the transmission interfaces 225 and 230 to transmit the image 205 and the temperature data 210 respectively, so that the receiving end also needs to be provided with two or more corresponding receiving interfaces to receive the data. As described above, the data format 220 of the temperature data 210 is developed and designed by the camera manufacturer itself, and correspondingly, the communication protocol 240 applicable to the transmission interface 230 also needs to be developed and designed by the camera manufacturer itself, resulting in the problem of increased development complexity for users.

[0065] It is worth mentioning that non-visible light images and infrared images are used interchangeably in this article, which refers to images with temperature information. The temperature data 210 refers to data that describes temperature information in numbers or words. For example, the colors presented in a non-visible light image represent a temperature, and a lookup table of temperature and the corresponding presented color values (pixel values) can be pre-stored, so that the color distribution presented in the non-visible light image can intuitively present the temperature distribution.

[0066] In this article, one byte is equal to 8 bits, which is represented alternately in this article and should not be regarded as an ambiguity in semantic expression.

[0067] Please refer to Figure 3 , which is a block diagram of a camera illustrated according to an embodiment of the present invention. The camera 300 includes an infrared thermal sensor 310, a processor 320, and an interface module 330. The processor 320 is coupled to the infrared thermal sensor 310 and the interface module 330.

[0068] The infrared thermal sensor 310 is configured to sense the infrared radiation energy in the environment and convert the sensed infrared radiation energy into an electrical signal to generate raw sensed data that can present the temperature in the environment. The raw sensed data is presented in the form of an image, and different colors in the image are used to represent different temperature distributions. The raw sensed data is, for example, 14-bit digital data.

[0069] The processor 320 is configured to process the raw sensing data to generate non-visible light images and a plurality of temperature data. In one embodiment, the pixel data size of the visible light image is one byte (8 bits), and the unit data size of the temperature data is two bytes (16 bits).

[0070] In one embodiment, the pixel data size refers to the data size of one pixel. For example, if the pixel data size is three bytes (24 bits), it means one pixel is three bytes.

[0071] In one embodiment, the unit data size of the temperature data refers to the data size of one temperature data. For example, if the unit data size is 16 bits, it means one temperature data is 16 bits.

[0072] The processor 320 is, for example but not limited to, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a System on Chip (SoC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Network Processor chip, or a combination of the above components.

[0073] The interface module 330 includes a plurality of transmission interfaces. The interface module 330 is configured to transmit the heterogeneous data composed of the above-mentioned images and temperature data in the present invention through one of the plurality of transmission interfaces. In one embodiment, each transmission interface of the interface module 330 supports transmitting images in YUV format and RGB image channel format.

[0074] The transmission interfaces of the interface module 330 are, for example but not limited to, Universal Serial Bus (USB), Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI), Ethernet, an interface applied to a Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) sensor, or a combination of the above interfaces.

[0075] Please refer to Figure 4 , which is a flowchart of an image transmission method for a camera according to an embodiment of the present invention. The image transmission method can be executed by the Figure 3 camera 300.

[0076] In step S410, the infrared thermal imager 310 generates raw sensing data.

[0077] In step S420, the processor 320 processes the raw sensing data to generate a non-visible light image and a plurality of temperature data.

[0078] In step S430, the processor 320 combines the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data according to the red, green, blue color model channels (RGB color model channel) to obtain a heterogeneous image in a visible light image format.

[0079] In step S440, one of the plurality of transmission interfaces of the interface module 330 transmits the heterogeneous image.

[0080] Steps S410 to S440 are further described below.

[0081] In step S410, each pixel of the sensing element of the infrared thermal imager 310 senses the infrared radiation energy and converts it into temperature data according to the infrared radiation energy. Each of all pixels has corresponding temperature data, and a corresponding color is pre-designed for the value of each temperature data. The temperature distribution of the raw sensing data generated by the infrared thermal imager 310 is recorded in the corresponding color and presented in the form of an image. The raw sensing data is the raw data generated by the infrared thermal imager 310.

[0082] For the description of step S420, please refer to Figure 5 . Figure 5 This is a schematic diagram of analyzing raw sensing data according to an embodiment of the present invention. The processor 320 analyzes the temperature data 520 from the sensing voltage in the raw sensing data 510 and converts the raw sensing data through an algorithm to generate a non-visible light image 530. In one embodiment, the raw sensing data 510 is an image with a pixel data size of 14 bits, the temperature data 520 is data with a unit data size of two bytes, and the non-visible light image 530 is an image with a pixel data size of 1 byte.

[0083] In order to simplify the number of transmission interfaces of the interface module 330 used for transmitting data, in step S430, the processor 320 combines the non-visible light image and the temperature data according to the red, green, blue color model channels generally used for transmitting visible light images.

[0084] In one embodiment, the red, green, and blue color model channels are the red channel, the green channel, and the blue channel respectively. The channel sizes of the red channel, the green channel, and the blue channel can be the same or different from each other, and the sum of the channel sizes of the red channel, the green channel, and the blue channel is the data size of one pixel of the image. For example, when the red channel, the green channel, and the blue channel of an image are each one byte (i.e., the sum of the channel sizes is three bytes), one pixel of this color image is three bytes; when the red channel, the green channel, and the blue channel of an image are each two bytes (i.e., the sum of the channel sizes is six bytes), the data size of one pixel of this color image is six bytes; when the red channel, the green channel, and the blue channel of an image are 5 bits, 6 bits, and 5 bits respectively (i.e., the sum of the channel sizes is 16 bits), the data size of one pixel of this color image is 16 bits. For simplicity of explanation, the following uses the data size of one pixel of a color image being three bytes (i.e., the channel sizes of the red channel, the green channel, and the blue channel are all 8 bits) as an example for illustration.

[0085] Please refer to Figure 6 , which is a schematic diagram of combining a non-visible light image and temperature data according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0086] In one embodiment, the non-visible light image has multiple pixels and each pixel corresponds to a temperature data. In one embodiment, the number of pixels of the non-visible light image is the same as the number of data of the temperature data, and the multiple pixels of the non-visible light image and the multiple temperature data are in one-to-one correspondence.

[0087] In one embodiment, the image data size of each pixel of the non-visible light image is one byte.

[0088] In one embodiment, the two bytes of the temperature data can be divided into multiple parts. For example, the two bytes of the temperature data include a first part and a second part, and the data lengths of the first part and the second part are greater than or equal to 0.

[0089] In one embodiment, the sum of the first part and the second part is equal to the unit data size of the temperature data. For example, the sum of the first part and the second part is two bytes (16 bits), where the first part and the second part are each one byte, or the first part is 6 bits and the second part is 10 bits.

[0090] When combining the non-visible light image and the temperature data, the bit values of the first part and the second part can be in the form of a linear combination as part of the heterogeneous image. For example, as Figure 6As shown, the 8 bits of the least significant bit 616a are the first part of the temperature data, and the 8 bits of the most significant bit 616b are the second part of the temperature data. In this embodiment, the bit values of the first part and the second part are a linear combination from the least significant bit to the most significant bit.

[0091] In one embodiment, if the resolution of the non-visible light image is 80×60 (pixels), then there are 4800 pixels in the non-visible light image, and the number of temperature data is also 4800. The image data of each pixel is 8 bits (one byte), and the unit data size of the temperature data is 16 bits (two bytes).

[0092] Taking the k-th pixel among the multiple pixels of the non-visible light image as an example. In one embodiment, the processor 320 combines the k-th pixel of the non-visible light image and the temperature data corresponding to the k-th pixel according to the red, green, and blue color model channels, and stores the combined data in the k-th pixel of the heterogeneous image.

[0093] In one embodiment, the above combined data, that is, the data stored in the k-th pixel of the heterogeneous image, has a pixel data size of three bytes. In this embodiment, the data of each pixel of the heterogeneous image is a linear combination of the bit value of the image data of a pixel of the non-visible light image and the bit value of a temperature data. For example, the bit value of a temperature data is 11011011 00100100, where the bit value of the first part of the temperature data is 11011011 and the bit value of the second part is 00100100. At the same time, the bit value of a pixel of the non-visible light image is 00001111. Combining the above data, the combined data is a pixel data of the heterogeneous image, and the bit value of a pixel of the heterogeneous image is obtained as 00001111 11011011 00100100. This combination method is "the bit value of a pixel of the non-visible light image, the bit value of the first part of the temperature data, the bit value of the second part of the temperature data", and the bit values of each byte are combined in the order from the least significant byte to the most significant byte.

[0094] Taking the above example, since the data of each pixel of the heterogeneous image is a linear combination of the value of the image data of a pixel of the non-visible light image and the bit value of a temperature data, the value of the image data of the pixel of the heterogeneous image can also be 00001111 00100100 11011011. This combination method is "the bit value of a pixel of the non-visible light image, the bit value of the second part of the temperature data, the bit value of the first part of the temperature data", and the bit values of each byte are combined in the order from the least significant byte to the most significant byte.

[0095] In another embodiment, the value of the image data of the pixels of the heterogeneous image can also be 001001000000111111011011. This combination method is "the bit value of the second part of the temperature data, the bit value of a pixel of the non-visible light image, the bit value of the first part of the temperature data", and the bit values of each byte are combined in the order from the least significant byte to the most significant byte.

[0096] It is worth mentioning that the above combination method is only for illustrative purposes of the embodiment, and any combination pattern that can be inferred from the above description can be applied to the present invention.

[0097] In one embodiment, the RGB color model channels include a red color channel, a green color channel, and a blue color channel, and each color channel has a color channel bit size. The size of the RGB color model channels is the sum of the color channel bit sizes of each color channel. For example, the color channel bit sizes of the red color channel, the green color channel, and the blue color channel are 8 bits respectively, so the size of the RGB color model channels is 24 bits.

[0098] In one embodiment, the processor 320 combines a pixel of the non-visible light image at the channel position of one of the RGB color model channels and a temperature data corresponding to a pixel of the non-visible light image at the channel positions of the other two of the RGB color model channels to obtain a pixel of the heterogeneous image.

[0099] Such as Figure 6As shown, in one embodiment, the first pixel 612 of the non-visible light image is placed in the red color channel, one byte of data (e.g., 8 bits) starting from the least significant byte (LSB) 616a of the first data 614 of the plurality of temperature data is placed in the green color channel, and one byte of data (e.g., 8 bits) starting from the most significant byte (MSB) 616b is placed in the blue color channel. In this arrangement, the first pixel 612 of the non-visible light image and the first data 614 of the plurality of temperature data are combined as the data of the first pixel 618 of the heterogeneous image, that is, the combined data is stored at the position of the first pixel 618 of the heterogeneous image. Similarly, the k-th pixel 632 of the non-visible light image is placed in the red color channel, one byte of data (e.g., 8 bits) starting from the least significant byte 636a of the k-th data 634 of the plurality of temperature data is placed in the green color channel, and one byte of data (e.g., 8 bits) starting from the most significant byte (MSB) 636b is placed in the blue color channel. In this arrangement, the k-th pixel 632 of the non-visible light and the k-th data 634 of the plurality of temperature data are combined as the data of the k-th pixel 638 of the heterogeneous image, that is, the combined data is stored at the position of the k-th pixel 638 of the heterogeneous image. Where k is a positive integer from 1 to the resolution of the heterogeneous image. For example, if the resolution of the heterogeneous image is 80×60 (pixel), then the range of the k value is a positive integer of 1≤k≤4800.

[0100] In one embodiment, the processor 320 executes Figure 6 the merging program of the non-visible light image and the temperature data, and merges all the pixels of the non-visible light image and the corresponding temperature data one by one to obtain a complete heterogeneous image. In this embodiment, the pixel data size of each pixel of the heterogeneous image is three bytes.

[0101] In one embodiment, the image data size (one byte) of a pixel of the non-visible light image is equal to the color channel bit size, and the size of one temperature data (two bytes) is twice the color channel bit size. For example, the color channel bit size is 8 bits, the image data size of a pixel of the non-visible light image is 8 bits, and the size of one temperature data is 16 bits.

[0102] In another embodiment, the processor 320 combines the non-visible light image, the plurality of temperature data, and the original sensing data according to the red, green, and blue color model channels to generate a heterogeneous image. The detailed steps of the merging program are similar to the above Figure 6The description is the same, except that the processor 320 additionally adds the original sensed data to a part of the red, green, and blue color model channels to obtain a heterogeneous image. In other words, the present invention is not limited to the number of data added in the merging process, as long as the sum of the sizes of all data added in the merging process to generate a heterogeneous image is equal to or less than the total channel size of the red, green, and blue color model channels, which conforms to the design spirit of the present invention.

[0103] Please refer to Figure 7 , which is a schematic diagram of a heterogeneous image with a visible light image format obtained after merging a non-visible light image and temperature data according to an embodiment of the present invention. The processor 320 of the camera 300 performs the above Figure 6 described merging process on each pixel of the non-visible light image 710 and the temperature data 720 at the corresponding pixel position, and obtains pixel data with a visible light image format at the corresponding pixel position. The processor 320 merges all pixels of the non-visible light image 710 and the temperature data 720 at the corresponding pixel positions, and obtains a complete heterogeneous image 730.

[0104] In one embodiment, the visible light image format includes the YUV format and the RGB format, and the present invention is not limited thereto.

[0105] Since the camera 300 continuously captures original sensed data (for example, at a frequency of 30 fps (frames per second)), each piece of original sensed data can be processed by the processor 320 to generate a corresponding non-visible light image 710 and a corresponding plurality of temperature data 720. Therefore, a plurality of heterogeneous images 730 will be correspondingly generated.

[0106] It is worth mentioning that the manner in which the processor 320 merges the pixels of the non-visible light image and the temperature data is not limited to Figure 6 the arrangement.

[0107] Please refer back to Figure 6 . In another embodiment, the processor 320 merges a plurality of pixels of the non-visible light image and a plurality of temperature data in a predefined arrangement. For example, the predefined arrangement includes the first pixel 612 of the non-visible light image and the first data 614 of the temperature data, which are interleaved byte by byte into each byte of the red color channel, the green color channel, and the blue color channel ( Figure 6(not shown), such that the data of multiple bytes in each pixel of the heterogeneous image is stored in the pixel in the above-mentioned manner (this arrangement will cause all the bytes of each pixel of the non-visible light image and all the bytes of each temperature data to be interleaved with each other, so that each temperature data will be encoded into the heterogeneous image in a non-continuous arrangement); the least significant byte (LSB) 616a of the first data 614 of the temperature data is placed in the red color channel, the most significant byte (MSB) 616b is placed in the green color channel, and the first pixel 612 of the non-visible light image is placed in the blue color channel( Figure 6 (not shown). And so on, the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned arrangement and merging methods.

[0108] Please refer to Figure 8 , which is a schematic diagram of the image, temperature data, and applicable transmission interface generated by the camera according to an embodiment of the present invention. The camera 800 executes the foregoing Figure 4 steps of the image transmission method described, combines the non-visible light image and the temperature data, and generates a heterogeneous image 805. The image format 815 of the heterogeneous image 805 is, for example, the YUV format or the RGB format, and the present invention is not limited thereto.

[0109] Since the non-visible light image and the temperature data are in non-standardized formats, the heterogeneous image 805 that is disguised as a visible light image and has a standardized format through the above processing procedure, so the camera 800 can transmit the heterogeneous image 805 with a standardized format to the receiving end (not shown in the figure) through an industrial standard transmission interface 820 and communication protocol 825.

[0110] It is worth mentioning that since the processor 320 executes the merging procedure through the red, green, and blue color model channels, the image presented by the obtained heterogeneous image 805 does not have a human-readable meaning. In an embodiment, the camera 300 uses a standardized image format to carry two different types of data (i.e., non-visible light image and temperature), combines the non-visible light image and the temperature data through the above merging method, and disguises them as a visible light image, thereby simplifying the procedure for developing for different types of data.

[0111] On the other hand, the receiving end will pre-store the arrangement rules of the merging program. Specifically, after receiving the heterogeneous image, the receiving end will interpret the data of each byte of each pixel of the heterogeneous image 805 according to the arrangement rules, read and piece together the data before the merging program in reverse, so as to reconstruct the non-visible light image and temperature data, and complete the transmission and restoration of an image frame. For example, when the arrangement rule (such as the above combination method) is "the bit value of the second part of the temperature data, the bit value of a pixel of the non-visible light image, the bit value of the first part of the temperature data", the receiving end reads each byte of the received pixel according to this arrangement rule and pieces together a pixel of the non-visible light image and a temperature data before the merging program. After the receiving end repeatedly executes the above program for reconstructing data, a complete non-visible light image and the corresponding temperature data can be obtained.

[0112] In this way, the camera and image transmission method of the present invention do not need to use two or more transmission interfaces to separately transmit the non-visible light image of the camera and its corresponding data, and only one transmission interface is needed to transmit two or more different types of data and images. The camera and image transmission method of the present invention are applicable to data in various data formats and images in various image formats. Therefore, users do not need to develop firmware or software development kits (SDKs) by themselves, and can transmit non-standard format images and temperature data to the receiving end through standardized image formats, greatly reducing the development complexity and saving the operation cost. In addition, the camera and image transmission method of the present invention do not need to greatly compress the image, so the information of the image is retained and the problem of distortion is avoided.

[0113] The above are only the preferred specific examples of the present invention, and do not limit the patent scope of the present invention accordingly. Therefore, all equivalent changes made by using the content of the present invention are equally included in the scope of the present invention, and are hereby stated.

Claims

1. A camera, characterized in that: include: An infrared thermal imaging sensor configured to generate a raw sensing data; a processor coupled to the infrared thermal imaging sensor and configured to process the raw sensing data to generate a non-visible light image with a pixel data size of one byte and a plurality of temperature data with a unit data size of two bytes; and an interface module coupled to the processor and comprising a plurality of transmission interfaces, configured to transmit a heterogeneous image having a pixel data size of three bytes through one of the plurality of transmission interfaces, wherein a bit value of the three bytes is a linear combination of the bit value of the one byte and the bit value of the two bytes; The processor is configured to merge the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data according to a red, green and blue color model channel to obtain the heterogeneous image in a visible light image format.

2. The camera according to claim 1, characterized in that The non-visible light image includes a plurality of pixels, and the plurality of temperature data respectively correspond to the plurality of pixels. The processor is configured to respectively merge a k-th pixel of the non-visible light image and the temperature data corresponding to the k-th pixel into the k-th pixel of the heterogeneous image, so that the pixel data size of each pixel of the heterogeneous image is the three bytes, wherein k is a positive integer less than or equal to the resolution of the heterogeneous image.

3. The camera according to claim 1, characterized in that The processor is configured to place a pixel of the non-visible light image at a channel position of one of the red, green and blue color model channels and place the temperature data corresponding to the pixel of the non-visible light image at channel positions of the other two of the red, green and blue color model channels and merge them to obtain a pixel of the heterogeneous image.

4. The camera according to claim 1, characterized in that The red, green and blue color model channels include a red color channel, a green color channel and a blue color channel, each having a color channel bit size; The pixel data size of the non-visible light image is equal to the bit size of the color channel, and the unit data size of the temperature data is twice the bit size of the color channel.

5. The camera according to claim 1, wherein: The two bytes of the temperature data include a first portion and a second portion, and the processor is configured to calculate a linear combination of the bit values ​​of each of the first portion and the second portion of the temperature data as a portion of the three bytes of the heterogeneous image.

6. A method for transmitting an image of a camera, characterized in that: The camera includes an infrared thermal imaging sensor, a processor and an interface module. The processor is coupled to the infrared thermal imaging sensor and the interface module. The image transmission method includes: Generate a raw sensing data by the infrared thermal imaging sensor; Processing the raw sensing data by the processor to generate a non-visible light image with a pixel data size of one byte and a plurality of temperature data with a unit data size of two bytes; Merging the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data by the processor according to a red, green and blue color model channel to obtain a heterogeneous image having a pixel data size of three bytes and a visible light image format, wherein the bit value of the three bytes is a linear combination of the bit value of the one byte and the bit value of the two bytes; and The heterogeneous image is transmitted through one of the plurality of transmission interfaces of the interface module.

7. The image transmission method according to claim 6, wherein: The non-visible light image includes a plurality of pixels, the plurality of temperature data respectively correspond to the plurality of pixels, and the step of combining the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data to obtain the heterogeneous image includes: A k-th pixel of the non-visible light image and the temperature data corresponding to the k-th pixel are respectively merged into the k-th pixel of the heterogeneous image, so that the pixel data size of each pixel of the heterogeneous image is the three bytes, wherein k is a positive integer less than or equal to the resolution of the heterogeneous image.

8. The image transmission method according to claim 6, wherein: The step of combining the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data to obtain the heterogeneous image comprises: A pixel of the non-visible light image is placed according to the channel position of one of the red, green and blue color model channels and the temperature data corresponding to the pixel of the non-visible light image is placed at the channel positions of the other two of the red, green and blue color model channels and merged to obtain a pixel of the heterogeneous image.

9. The image transmission method according to claim 6, wherein: The red, green and blue color model channels include a red color channel, a green color channel and a blue color channel, each having a color channel bit size; wherein the pixel data size of the non-visible light image is equal to the color channel bit size and the unit data size of each temperature data is twice the color channel bit size.

10. The image transmission method according to claim 6, wherein: The two bytes of the temperature data include a first part and a second part, and the step of combining the non-visible light image and the plurality of temperature data to obtain the heterogeneous image further includes: A linear combination of the bit values ​​of the first portion and the second portion of each of the temperature data is calculated as a portion of the three bytes of the heterogeneous image.

Images