Methods for estimating position and inclination

Abstract

Method for estimating position and inclination, comprising: - Forming an image database (5, 5a) using an image database formation device (100), comprising: providing the image database formation device (100) comprising an area detection unit (1), an information acquisition unit (2), a computation unit (3) and an image database generation unit (4); detecting, by the area detection unit (1), to which area from several areas a photographic image belongs; acquiring, by the information acquisition unit (2), distance information indicating a distance between a photographed object of the photographic image and an acquisition location of the photographic image; calculating, by the computation unit (3), an acquisition location and an inclination of the photographic image based on the distance information;and generating the image database (5, 5a) in which the acquisition location and the inclination of the photographic image and the photographic image are associated as image information, image database generation unit (4) wherein the image database (5, 5a) is generated by grouping image information from images belonging to the same area in order to be able to compare an acquired image only with images belonging to the same area as the area captured by the area capture unit; - Estimating the location and inclination using a location and inclination estimating device (200, 200a): providing the location and inclination estimating device (200, 200a) comprising an area capture unit (1a), an image acquisition unit (2a), a database comparison unit (11) and a location and inclination estimating unit (12); capturing which area from the several areas an image belongs to, by the area capture unit (1a);Acquisition of an image of a photographed object by the image acquisition unit (2a); comparison of the image acquired by the image acquisition unit (2a) only with an image belonging to the same area as the area recorded by the area detection unit (1), from the images stored in the image database (5, 5a), by the database comparison unit (11); and output, as an estimation result, of a location and inclination of an image as a comparison result in the database comparison unit (11) by the location and inclination estimation unit (12).

Description

TECHNICAL FIELDThe present invention relates to a method for location and inclination estimation.PRIOR ARTFor example, in a case of developing an application using augmented reality (AR) in which additional information is displayed while being superimposed on a specific object, pure location information of the terminal is insufficient, and information on the inclination of the terminal is required. Moreover, in such an application, it is necessary to estimate an accurate location as the location information of the terminal.In the related art, as a method of obtaining an accurate location and inclination of a terminal, there is a method of using previously registered images (see, for example, Non-Patent Document 1). This associates all interior images and location and inclination information to obtain image data and accumulate this image data to establish a database. When the location of the terminal is to be estimated, an image photographic from the terminal location is compared with all the images in the database, thereby searching the most similar image, and the location and inclination of the image are outputted.CITATIONLISTNON-PATENT LITERATURENon-Patent Document 1: Esra Ataer-Cansiziglu, Yuichi Taguchi, Sricumar Ramlingam and Yohei Miki: Calibration of Non-Overlapping Cameras Using an External SLAM System, Image Processing (ICIP), 2016 IEEE International Conference, 25-28. September 2016.SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONTECHNICAL PROBLEMHowever, in the prior art method of estimating the location and inclination, there is a disadvantage such as the following because the comparison with an image similar to the photographic image is performed for all the internal images. That is, as a first drawback, the real-time property is deteriorated. This is because as the number of pieces of image data stored in the database increases, the calculation cost increases, thereby degrading the real-time characteristic. As a second drawback, it is difficult to distinguish the same scenes. For example, there is a possibility that an incorrect comparison result is obtained in a case where similar scenes are stored at different locations in the database, that is, image data in which the shapes of subjects are similar although they are stored in the database as at different locations.Note that, as a means for obtaining the location of the terminal, it is also conceivable to use a satellite positioning system such as the global positioning system (GPS). However, internal positioning is difficult using such a satellite positioning system, and the positioning accuracy for obtaining the accurate location of the terminal is insufficient. Therefore, application to an apparatus for estimating the inside location and the inclination is difficult. Particularly, in a case where similar pieces of image data exist for multiple floors as in a building, since the positioning accuracy in the height direction is insufficient in a method using a satellite positioning system, accurate comparison results cannot be obtained, and thus it is difficult to estimate the location and inclination of the indoor terminal using a satellite positioning system from this viewpoint as well.The present invention has been made to avoid such disadvantages, and it is an object to provide a location and inclination estimation method capable of improving the real-time property and providing an accurate estimation result for the location and inclination.SOLUTION OF PROBLEMThe invention is defined by the claim. An image database imaging apparatus according to the present invention includes: an area acquisition unit for acquiring to which area of a plurality of areas a photographic image belongs; an information acquisition unit for acquiring distance information indicating a distance between a photographed object of a photographic image and an acquisition location of the photographic image; a calculation unit for calculating an acquisition location and an inclination of the photographic image on the basis of the distance information; and an image database generation unit for generating an image database in which the acquisition location and the inclination of the photographic image and the photographic image are associated as image information, wherein the image database generation unit generates the image database by grouping image information of images belonging to the same area.In addition, a location and inclination determination apparatus according to the present invention includes: an image database for storing image information in which images each having information about a purchase location and an inclination are grouped by a plurality of areas; an area detection unit for detecting to which area of the plurality of areas an image belongs; an image acquisition unit for acquiring an image of a photographed object; a database comparison unit for comparing the image acquired by the image acquisition unit only with those images belonging to the same area acquired by the area detection unit from the images stored in the image database; and a location and inclination estimating unit for outputting, as an estimation result, a location and an inclination of an image as a result of the comparison in the database comparing unit.ADVANTAGEOUS EFFECTS OF THE INVENTIONAn image database forming apparatus according to the present invention associates a photographic image, the acquisition location and inclination of the photographic image and area information, and generates an image database by using the associated image information. As a result, it is possible to obtain the image database capable of improving the real-time characteristic for estimating the location and inclination of an image and providing an accurate estimation result of the location and inclination.Moreover, a location and inclination estimating apparatus according to the present invention compares only with images belonging to the same area as the area detected by an area detecting unit from the images stored in the image database. As a result, the real-time property can be improved, and an accurate estimation result for the location and the inclination can be obtained.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSFIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an image database forming apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of spaces to which the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention is applied. FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of an image database generated in the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional image database. FIG. 7 is a configuration diagram of a location and inclination estimation device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 8 is a hardware configuration diagram of the location and inclination estimation device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 9 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of the location and inclination estimation apparatus according to the first embodiment of the invention. FIG. 10 is a configuration diagram of an image database estimation device according to a second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 11 is a hardware configuration diagram of the image database forming apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram of spaces to which the image database forming apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention is applied. FIG. 13 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of the image database forming apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of an image database generated in the image database forming apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 15 is a configuration diagram of a location and inclination estimation device according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 16 is a hardware configuration diagram of the location and inclination estimation device according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 17 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of the location and inclination estimation apparatus according to the second embodiment of the invention.DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTSIn order to further describe the invention in detail, embodiments for carrying out the invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.First EmbodimentFIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment.The illustrated image database forming apparatus includes an area acquisition unit 1, a sensor information acquisition unit 2, a location relationship calculation unit 3, and an image database generation unit 4. The sensor information acquisition unit 2 includes an image acquisition unit 2 aand a distance measurement unit 2 b. The image acquisition unit 2 ais an apparatus for acquiring an internal image, and the distance measurement unit 2 bis a processing unit for measuring distance information indicating a distance between a photographed object in a photographic image and the acquisition location of the photographic image. The location relationship calculation unit 3 calculates the acquisition location and the inclination of each photographic image based on the photographic image and the distance information acquired by the sensor information acquisition unit 2. The image database generation unit 4 is a processing unit for associating the acquisition location and inclination of the photographic image calculated by the location relationship calculation unit 3, the photographic image acquired by the sensor information acquisition unit 2, and the area information acquired by the area acquisition unit 1 to obtain image information, and generating an image database 5 by using the image information.FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of the image database forming apparatus illustrated in FIG. 1. In FIG. 2, the image database forming apparatus 100 includes a radio frequency identification (RFID) receiver 101, a camera 102, a distance sensor 103, and a computer 104. The RFID receiver 101 communicates with RFID tags 105 provided for each of the plurality of interior regions and detects which RFID tag 105 has been detected. The camera 102 is a device for acquiring a color image. The distance sensor 103 is a device for acquiring a distance image (an image obtained by imaging the distance corresponding to each pixel). The computer 104 is a device for acquiring data from the RFID receiver 101, the camera 102, and the distance sensor 103 and generating the image database 5 of FIG. 1 based on these pieces of data, and includes, for example, a personal computer or a smartphone.The RFID receiver in FIG. 2 implements the range detection unit 1 in FIG. 1, the camera 102 implements the image acquisition unit 2 a, and the distance sensor 103 implements the distance measurement unit 2 b. The computer 104 implements the functions of the location relationship calculation unit 3 and the image database generation unit 4.In the case where the image database forming apparatus in FIG. 1 is configured as illustrated in FIG. 2, the range acquisition unit 1 to the image database generation unit 4 in FIG. 1 have the following functions. The area detection unit 1 communicates with an RFID tag 105 to detect an attribute thereof (as in which area). The sensor information acquisition unit 2 acquires pairs of multiple color images and distance information corresponding to these color images. The location relationship calculation unit 3 combines the information acquired by the sensor information acquisition unit 2 to form three-dimensional point group data, and estimates the acquisition location and the inclination of each of the pairs from a color image and the distance information. The image database generation unit 4 associates, as image information, the acquisition location and inclination of the photographic image estimated by the location relationship calculation unit 3, the photographic image, and the area information, and generates the image database 5 by using the image information.Next, the operation of the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment will be described.FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating two spaces when viewed from above. Each of the rooms (room 1 and room 2) corresponds to each area, and a first RFID tag 105 aand a second RFID tag 105 bare disposed near the entrance of each of the rooms. The operation of configuring an image database for two such rooms will be described with reference to a flowchart in FIG. 4.First, description will be made on the assumption that data of the room 1 in FIG. 3 has been acquired as indicated by a broken line 110. The range detection unit 1 detects the first RFID tag 105 a(range detection step: step ST 1). Then, the image acquiring unit 2 aof the sensor information acquiring unit 2 acquires color images of the location 1 (information acquiring step: step ST 2), and the distance measuring unit 2 bacquires distance images (information acquiring step: step ST 3). Next, the location relationship calculation unit 3 connects the data acquired by the sensor information acquisition unit 2, and calculates the location and inclination of the apparatus for acquiring the color images and measuring the distance images (calculation step: step ST 4). An example of the location and the inclination obtained here is a value with respect to the location and the inclination at the start time of measurement. As an example of a method of connecting pairs of color images and distance information, there is a method using points characteristic of the images (for example, a method described in: Taguchi, Y., Jian, Y.-D., Ramlingam, S.: Point-Plane SLAM for Hand-Held 3D Sensors, Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2014 IEEE International Conference, 6.-10. May 2013). After the processing of steps ST 2 to ST 4 is performed in one room, the measurement is ended (step ST 5: YES). The location relationship calculation unit 3 further refines the location and the inclination of the sensor using beam setting and the like (step ST 6). Thereafter, it is determined whether the measurement is completed in all the rooms (step ST7), and if it is not completed, the flow returns to step ST1 to repeat the above processing. When the measurement for all the rooms has been completed, the operation of configuring the image database is completed. In this case, since the measurement of the space 2 has not yet been performed, "NO" is obtained in step ST 7, and a color image and distance information are acquired at each location as indicated by a broken line 111 in FIG. 3 to perform the processing of steps ST 2 to ST 6.When the measurement for the space 1 and the space 2 is performed by such a method, a database illustrated in FIG. 5 is generated by the image database generation unit 4 (image database generation step). As illustrated in FIG. 5, pairs of an image, and distance information / the location and the inclination are registered for each RFID. A database according to the prior art is illustrated in Fig. 6 for comparison. As compared with the database in FIG. 6, images for each RFID are grouped in the database by the image database forming apparatus according to the present embodiment.Next, a location and inclination estimation device according to the first embodiment will be described.FIG. 7 is a configuration diagram of a location and inclination estimation device. The location and inclination estimation device according to the present embodiment includes an area detection unit 1, an image acquisition unit 2 a, a database comparison unit 11, and a location and inclination estimation unit 12. The database comparing unit 11 is a processing unit for comparing the image acquired by the image acquiring unit 2 awith only images having the same area information as the area information acquired by the area acquiring unit 1 from the images stored in the image database 5 and specifying one of the images. The location and inclination estimation unit 12 is a processing unit for outputting the location and inclination of the image specified by the database comparison unit 11 as an estimation result. The image database 5 is generated by the image database forming apparatus.FIG. 8 is a hardware configuration diagram of the location and inclination estimation device illustrated in FIG. 7. In FIG. 8, a location and inclination estimation device 200 includes an RFID receiver 101, a camera 102, and a computer 201. The RFID receiver 101 and the camera 102 are similar to the RFID receiver 101 and the camera 102 in the image database forming apparatus 100. The computer 201 is a device for acquiring data from the RFID receiver 101 and the camera 102 and estimating the location and inclination of the terminal based on these pieces of data, and includes, for example, a personal computer or a smartphone.The RFID receiver 101 in FIG. 8 implements the range detection unit 1 in FIG. 7, and the camera 102 implements the image acquisition unit 2 a. The computer 201 implements the functions of the database comparing unit 11 and the location and inclination estimating unit 12.In the case where the location and inclination estimation device in FIG. 7 is configured as illustrated in FIG. 8, the range detection unit 1 to the location and inclination estimation unit 12 in FIG. 7 have the following functions. The area detection unit 1 communicates with an RFID tag 105 to detect an attribute thereof (as in which area). The image acquiring unit 2 aacquiries a color image photographed from the terminal location. The database comparing unit 11 compares with the image database 5 on the basis of the color image acquired by the image acquiring unit 2 aand the area information acquired by the area acquiring unit 1, and the location and inclination estimating unit 12 outputs, as an estimation result, the location and inclination of an image as a comparison result in the database comparing unit 11.Next, the operation of the location and inclination estimation apparatus according to the first embodiment will be described with reference to a flowchart of FIG. 9.A user brings the RFID tag 105 into contact with the RFID receiver 101 to read the RFID tag 105 (step ST 11) to input information on the space in which the terminal is located. Note that this input to the RFID receiver 101 (database comparing unit 11) may be manually performed by the user, or information of the RFID tag 105 from the RFID receiver 101 may be directly given to the RFID receiver 101 (database comparing unit 11) as information on the space. Note that in this example, it is assumed that the terminal has entered the space 1 of the first RFID tag 105 aillustrated in FIG. 3. In such a state, when the image acquiring unit 2 aacquires image data in the space 1 (step ST 12), the database comparing unit 11 compares with the data in the image database 5 (step ST 13). In this example, in the image database illustrated in FIG. 5, comparison is made only with images of RFID ( 1). Then, from the color images of the RFID ( 1), an image most similar to the image acquired in step ST 12 is extracted. Next, the location and inclination estimation unit 12 estimates the location and inclination of the terminal on the basis of the distance information of the terminal + location t and inclination R of the terminal attached to the image extracted in step ST 13 (step ST 14).In this way, according to the location and inclination estimation device of the first embodiment, as a first effect, the calculation time is shortened. In the present embodiment, the comparison with the image database 5 is performed only with image data corresponding to a specified range. Therefore, the number of images to be compared can be reduced as compared with the prior art. For example, in the above example, the comparison is performed only on the images of RFID ( 1) and not images of RFID ( 2), and thus the calculation time can be shortened. As a second effect, discrimination of similar scenes can be improved. For example, even in a case where space 1 and space 2 illustrated in FIG. 3 have the inside of similar patterns, since the comparison is performed while distinguishing space 1 and space 2, the terminal location can be accurately estimated.Note that, in the image database forming apparatus and the location and inclination estimating apparatus, the RFID becomes the means for determining the areas; however, any means capable of uniquely determining the areas, such as a beacon, may be used in the same manner.As described above, according to the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment, included are: the area acquisition unit for acquiring to which area of a plurality of areas a photographic image belongs; the information acquisition unit for acquiring distance information indicating a distance between a photographed object of the photographic image and an acquisition location of the photographic image; the calculation unit for calculating an acquisition location and an inclination of the photographic image on the basis of the distance information; and the image database generation unit for generating an image database in which the acquisition location and the inclination of the photographic image and the photographic image are associated as image information, the image database generation unit generates the image database by grouping image information of images belonging to the same area. Therefore, it is possible to provide the image database capable of improving the real-time characteristic for estimating location and inclination of an image and providing an accurate estimation result of the location and inclination.Moreover, according to the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment, the plurality of areas are associated with the areas detected by the area detection unit one by one, and thus the areas can be easily and reliably determined.Moreover, according to the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment, the area detection unit detects an area using the RFID, and thus the areas can be easily and reliably determined.In addition, according to the location and inclination estimation device according to the first embodiment, included are: the image database for storing image information in which images each having information about a purchase location and an inclination are grouped by a plurality of areas; the area detection unit for detecting to which area of the plurality of areas an image belongs; the image acquisition unit for acquiring an image of a photographed object; the database comparison unit for comparing the image acquired by the image acquisition unit only with images belonging to the same area acquired by the area detection unit from the images stored in the image database; and the location and inclination estimating unit for outputting, as an estimation result, a location and an inclination of an image as a result of the comparison in the database comparing unit. Therefore, it is possible to improve the real-time characteristic and obtain an accurate estimation result of the location and the inclination.Moreover, according to the location and inclination estimation device according to the first embodiment, the plurality of regions are associated with the regions detected by the region detection unit in a one-to-one manner, and thus the regions can be easily and reliably determined.Moreover, according to the location and inclination estimation device according to the first embodiment, the area detection unit detects an area using the RFID, and thus the areas can be easily determined too reliably.In addition, according to the image database forming method according to the first embodiment, it is possible to obtain the image database capable of improving the real-time characteristic for estimating the location and inclination of an image and providing an accurate estimation result for the location and inclination, because the image database forming method using the image database forming apparatus according to the first embodiment includes: an area acquisition step of acquiring to which area of a plurality of areas a photographic image belongs; an information acquisition step of acquiring distance information indicating a distance between a photographed object of the photographic image and an acquisition location of the photographic image; a calculation step of calculating an acquisition location and an inclination of the photographic image on the basis of the distance information; and an image database generating step of generating an image database in which the acquisition location and the inclination of the photographic image and the photographic image are associated as image information, wherein the image database generating step generates the image database by grouping image information of images belonging to the same area.Second EmbodimentA second embodiment includes an image database forming apparatus for generating an image database by grouping based on signal values obtained from a plurality of internal locations, and a location and inclination estimating apparatus for estimating the location and the inclination using the image database configured by the image database forming apparatus.FIG. 10 is a configuration diagram of an image database forming apparatus according to the second embodiment. The illustrated image database forming apparatus includes an area acquisition unit 1 a, a sensor information acquisition unit 2, a location relationship calculation unit 3, and an image database generation unit 4 a. In this embodiment, since the sensor information acquisition unit 2 and the location relationship calculation unit 3 are similar components to those in the first embodiment, the description thereof is omitted here. The range detection unit 1 ais a processing unit for measuring set signal values at a plurality of internal locations as values corresponding to ranges. The image database generation unit 4 agroups calculation information on the location and inclination of each photographic image calculated by the location relationship calculation unit 3 using the signal values measured by the range detection unit 1 a, associates the grouped photographic images, the acquisition location and inclination of the photographic images, and the signal values, and generates an image database 5 aby using the associated image information.FIG. 11 is a hardware configuration diagram of the image database forming apparatus illustrated in FIG. 10. In FIG. 11, an image database imaging apparatus 100 aincludes a WLAN receiver 106, a camera 102, a distance sensor 103, and a computer 104 a. The WLAN receiver 106 communicates with an access point 107 of a WLAN that is present in each of a plurality of indoors and measures the signal strength (received signal strength indicator (RSSI)) thereof. The camera 102 and the distance sensor 103 are similar to the camera 102 and the distance sensor 103 in the image database imaging device 100 according to the first embodiment. The computer 104 ais a device for acquiring data from the WLAN receiver 106, the camera 102, and the distance sensor 103 and generating the image database 5 ain FIG. 10 based on these pieces of data, and includes, for example, a personal computer or a smartphone.The WLAN receiver 106 in FIG. 11 implements the range detection unit 1 ain FIG. 10, the camera 102 implements an image acquisition unit 2 a, and the distance sensor 103 implements a distance measurement unit 2 b. The computer 104 a implements the functions of the location relationship calculation unit 3 and the image database generation unit 4 a. These functions are implemented by a processor of the computer 104 athat executes software corresponding to the location relationship calculation unit 3 and the image database generation unit 4 a.Next, the operation of the image database forming apparatus according to the second embodiment will be described. FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating two spaces when viewed from above. An access point 107a and an access point 107b are installed in the room 1, and an access point 107c and an access point 107d are installed in the room 2. The operation of configuring an image database of two such rooms will be described with reference to a flowchart in FIG. 13.First, assuming that data of the room 1 in FIG. 12 is acquired as indicated by a broken line 112, description will be made. In the flowchart of FIG. 13, since steps ST 21 to ST 23 are similar to steps ST 2 to ST 4 in FIG. 4 according to the first embodiment, the description thereof is omitted here. In the second embodiment, the radio detection unit 1 acommunicates with the access points 107 at a plurality of locations in the space 1 and measures the signal strength (RSSI) from the access points 107 (area detection step: step ST 24). As a result, at each location, the signal strength corresponding to one of the access points 107a to 107d at that location can be obtained. After the processing of steps ST 21 to ST 24 is performed in one room, the measurement is ended (step ST 25: YES). The location relationship calculation unit 3 further refines the location and inclination of a sensor using beam setting and the like (step ST 26). Next, the image database generation unit 4 aexecutes grouping of color images and distance information on the basis of the signal strength obtained in step ST 24 (image database generation step: step ST 27). As an example of grouping method, there are unsupervised learning methods such as K-means clustering and spectral clustering.Thereafter, it is determined whether the measurement for all the rooms has been completed (step ST28), and if it has not been completed, the processing from step ST21 is repeated. When the measurement of all the rooms has been completed, the process of configuring the image database is ended. In this case, since the measurement of the space 2 has not yet been performed, "NO" is obtained in step ST 28, and a color image and distance information are acquired at each location as indicated by a broken line 113 in FIG. 12 to perform the processing of steps ST 21 to ST 27.When measurement for the space 1 and the space 2 is performed by such a method and the image database generation unit 4 aconstitutes a database from the measurement results, an image database illustrated in FIG. 14 is generated (image data generation step). As illustrated in FIG. 14, pairs of an image, distance information / the location and the inclination are registered for each signal. In this example, signal 1 and signal 2 are signals corresponding to the room 1 and the room 2 illustrated in FIG. 12 ; however, they do not necessarily need to correspond to the rooms depending on the size of the rooms or the number of the access points 107. For example, if a space is large and there are many access points 107, multiple groups may be formed in one space.Next, a location and inclination estimation device according to the second embodiment will be described.FIG. 15 is a configuration diagram of a location and inclination estimation device. The location and inclination estimation device according to the present embodiment includes an area acquisition unit 1 a, an image acquisition unit 2 a, a database comparison unit 11 a, a location and inclination estimation unit 12 a, and an image database 5 a. The image acquisition unit 2 aand the area detection unit 1 aare similar to the image acquisition unit 2 aand the area detection unit 1 ain the image database forming apparatus. The database comparing unit 11 ais a processing unit for comparing an image acquired by the image acquiring unit 2 awith only images having the same signal value as a signal value acquired by the range acquiring unit 1 afrom among images stored in the image database 5 a, and specifying one of the images. The location and inclination estimation unit 12 ais a processing unit for outputting the location and inclination of the image determined by the database comparison unit 11 aas an estimation result. The image database 5 ais a database generated by the image database forming apparatus 100 a.FIG. 16 is a hardware configuration diagram of the location and inclination estimation device illustrated in FIG. 7. In FIG. 16, a location and inclination estimation device 200 aincludes a WLAN receiver 106, a camera 102, and a computer 201 a. The WLAN receiver 106 and the camera 102 are similar to the WLAN receiver 106 and the camera 102 in the image database forming apparatus 100 aillustrated in FIG. 11. The computer 201 ais a device for acquiring data from the WLAN receiver 106 and the camera 102 and estimating the location and inclination of the terminal based on these pieces of data, and includes, for example, a personal computer or a smartphone.The WLAN receiver 106 in FIG. 16 implements the range acquisition unit 1 ain FIG. 15, and the camera 102 implements the image acquisition unit 2 a. The computer 201a implements the functions of the database comparing unit 11a and the location and inclination estimating unit 12a. These functions are implemented by a processor of the computer 201a executing software corresponding to the database comparing unit 11a and the location and inclination estimating unit 12a.In a case where the location and inclination estimation device of FIG. 15 is configured as illustrated in FIG. 16, the image acquisition unit 2 ato the location and inclination estimation unit 12 ain FIG. 15 have the following functions. The image acquiring unit 2 aacquiries a color image photographed from the terminal location. The area detection unit 1a obtains the signal strength with each access point 107. The database comparing unit 11 acompares with the image database 5 abased on the color image acquired by the image acquiring unit 2 aand the signal strength measured by the range acquiring unit 1 a, and the location and inclination estimating unit 12 aoutputs, as an estimation result, the location and inclination of an image as a comparison result in the database comparing unit 11.Next, the operation of the location and inclination estimation apparatus according to the second embodiment will be described with reference to a flowchart in FIG. 17.When the area detection unit 1 adetects the signal strength of each access point at this location (step ST 31), the database comparison unit 13 afirst compares with the image database 5 abased on the signal strength (step ST 32). When the image acquiring unit 2 aacquires an image (step ST 33), the database comparing unit 13 acompares the image from the comparison results of step ST 32 (step ST 34). That is, the database comparing unit 13a first roughly estimates the location of the terminal on the basis of the signal strength from the range detecting unit 1a, and then compares with image data corresponding to the rough estimation result. For example, in the case of signal 1, in the comparison in step ST 32, comparison is performed only with images of signal 1 from image database 5 aillustrated in FIG. 14. Then, from color images of the signal 1, an image most similar to the image acquired in step ST 33 is extracted. Next, the location and inclination estimation unit 12 aestimates the location and inclination of the terminal on the basis of the distance information of the terminal + the location t and the inclination R of the terminal attached to the image extracted in step ST 34 (step ST 35).In this way, according to the location and inclination estimation device of the second embodiment, as a first effect, the calculation time is shortened. In the present embodiment, the comparison with the image database 5a is performed only on image data corresponding to a signal. Therefore, the number of compared images can be reduced as compared with the prior art. For example, in the above example, the plurality of color images illustrated in FIG. 14 corresponding to the signal 1 and an image acquired by the image acquiring unit 2 aare compared. Since no comparison is made with color images corresponding to the signal 2, a reduction in calculation time is expected. As a second effect, discrimination of similar scenes is improved. For example, even in a case where the space 1 and the space 2 illustrated in FIG. 12 have similar patterns inside, the terminal location can be accurately estimated because preprocessing is performed in which the location of a user is roughly determined based on the signal strength from the access point.Note that, in the image database forming apparatus and the location and inclination estimating apparatus described above, the RSSI is used as the signal value detected by the range detection unit 1 a; however, no limitation is thereby intended, and any one(s) among the signal strength of a beacon, the signal intensity of an ultra wide band (UWB), the distance to an access point (transmission time (ToF)), and a measurement value of a geo-magnetic sensor may be used.As described above, according to the image database forming apparatus according to the second embodiment, the area acquisition unit measures signal values set at the plurality of locations as values corresponding to areas, the image database generation unit groups acquisition locations and slopes of images calculated by the calculation unit using the signal values measured by the area acquisition unit, associates the signal values, the grouped acquisition locations and slopes of the images, and the images as image information, and generates the image database using the image information. Therefore, it is possible to provide the image database capable of improving the real-time characteristic for estimating the location and inclination of an image, and providing an accurate estimation result for the location and inclination.Moreover, according to the image database forming apparatus according to the second embodiment, since the area detection unit measures any one(s) of the RSSI, the signal strength of a beacon, the signal strength of a UWB, the distance to an access point, and a measurement value of a geomagnetic sensor as a set signal value, an area can be easily and reliably identified without requiring a special apparatus for the signal measurement.Further, according to the location and inclination estimation device according to the second embodiment, the area detection unit measures set signal values at the plurality of locations as values corresponding to areas, the image database is grouped using the signal values, and the database comparison unit compares only images having a signal value that is the same as the signal value detected by the area detection unit among the images stored in the image database. Therefore, it is possible to improve the real-time characteristic and obtain an accurate estimation result for the location and the inclination.Moreover, according to the location and inclination estimation device according to the second embodiment, since the area detection unit measures any one(s) of the RSSI, the signal strength of a beacon, the signal strength of a UWB, the distance to an access point, and a measurement value of a geomagnetic sensor as a set signal value, an area can be easily and reliably identified without requiring a special device for the signal measurement.Note that, within the scope of the present invention, the present invention may include a flexible combination of the respective embodiments, a modification of each component of the respective embodiment, or any component of the respective embodiments may be omitted.INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITYAs described above, an image database forming apparatus, a location and inclination estimating apparatus, and an image database forming method according to the present invention relate to a configuration for obtaining the location and inclination of a terminal using previously registered images, and are suitable for use for an application that displays additional information superimposed on a specific object.LIST OF REFERENCE CHARACTERS1, 1 a: range acquisition unit, 2: sensor information acquisition unit, 2 a: image acquisition unit, 2 b: distance measurement unit, 3: location relationship calculation unit, 4, 4 a: image database generation unit, 5, 5 a: image database, 6: signal measurement unit, 11, 11 a: database comparison unit, 12, 12 a: location and inclination estimation unit, 1, 100, 100 a: image database imaging device, 101: RFID receiver, 102: camera, 103: distance sensor, 104, 104 a, 201, 201 a: computer, 105: RFID tag, 106: WLAN receiver, 107: access point, 200, 200 a: location and inclination estimation device.

Claims

A location and inclination estimation method, comprising: forming an image database (5, 5a) using an image database imaging device (100), comprising: providing the image database imaging device (100) having an area acquisition unit (1), an information acquisition unit (2), a calculation unit (3), and an image database generation unit (4); acquiring, by the area acquisition unit (1), which area of a plurality of areas a photographic image belongs to; acquiring, by the information acquisition unit (2), distance information indicating a distance between a photographed object of the photographic image and an acquisition location of the photographic image; calculating, by the calculation unit (3), an acquisition location and an inclination of the photographic image based on the distance information; generating the image database (5, 5a) in which the acquisition location and the inclination of the photographic image and the photographic image are associated as image information, the image database generating unit (4), wherein the image database (5, 5a) is generated by grouping image information of images belonging to the same area so as to be able to compare an acquired image only with images belonging to the same area as the area acquired by the area acquiring unit; estimating the location and the inclination using a location and inclination estimation device (200, 200a): providing the location and inclination estimation device (200, 200a) including an area detection unit (1a), an image acquisition unit (2a), a database comparison unit (11), and a location and inclination estimation unit (12); detecting, by the area detection unit (1a), which area of the plurality of areas an image belongs to; acquiring, by the image acquisition unit (2a), an image of a photographed object; comparing the image acquired by the image acquiring unit (2a) with only an image belonging to the same area as the area acquired by the area acquiring unit (1) among the images stored in the image database (5, 5a) by the database comparing unit (11); and outputting, as an estimation result, a location and an inclination of an image as a comparison result in the database comparing unit (11) by the location and inclination estimating unit (12).

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