Virtual Screen Projection for Distortion-Free 360 Vehicle Views
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vehicle surroundings monitoring systems using multiple cameras to create a 360° bird's eye view often distort three-dimensional objects and introduce blind spots at image seams, particularly when thin columnar objects are positioned at the overlap areas of captured images.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle surroundings monitoring device that sets up a virtual screen in the overlapping region of adjacent camera ranges, projects images onto this screen, and performs coordinate conversion to display three-dimensional objects without distortion, ensuring accurate representation and avoiding blind spots by using a virtual-screen projection image generation unit and a road-surface projection image generation unit.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If coordinate conversion is performed to generate bird's eye view images by projecting captured images onto the road surface, then a 360° view of the surroundings is displayed, but three-dimensional objects are distorted and blind spots occur at image seams
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a virtual screen positioned between the cameras and the road surface, creating an intermediate projection plane. This virtual screen extends in the depth direction (from near to far) and allows three-dimensional objects to be projected without being collapsed onto the two-dimensional road surface, thereby preserving their vertical dimensions and avoiding distortion while still enabling comprehensive surround coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual screen acts as an intermediary between the captured images and the final bird's eye view display. By projecting images onto this intermediate virtual screen first, the system mediates the transformation process to prevent direct projection artifacts that would cause distortion and blind spots at seam locations, thus improving object recognition accuracy.
2Area of stationary object
If multiple cameras are used to capture images for 360° view, then comprehensive surroundings coverage is achieved, but blind spots occur at the seams where images are synthesized
Solution Approach 1:
By adding the depth dimension through the virtual screen that extends from near to far, the patent ensures that objects at seam locations are projected onto the virtual screen from multiple camera views without being cut off. This dimensional addition allows seamless synthesis while maintaining detection reliability across the entire 360° coverage area.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual screen is pre-positioned and configured before image synthesis occurs. This preliminary setup ensures that the projection geometry is established in advance, allowing images from multiple cameras to be correctly mapped onto the virtual screen without creating blind spots at seam locations during the synthesis process.
Data Source
AI summary
A virtual-screen setup unit sets up a virtual screen in a seam of images captured by an image capturing unit, the virtual screen being orthogonal to a road surface and extending in a direction from a near side to a far side of the vehicle. A virtual-screen projection image generation unit performs conversion of the images captured by the image capturing unit for projection onto the virtual screen, and thereby generates a virtual-screen projection image. The virtual-screen projection image is displayed on the image display unit.