Video collecting device, video searching device, and video collecting/searching system

An image collecting device comprising:

• an image recording unit which records a sequence of picked-up image data together with the image pickup times;
• a position acquiring unit which acquires attribute information containing at least an image pickup position and image pickup time;
• a position-time recording unit which records the attribute information acquired by the position acquiring unit;
• and
• a recording control unit which controls the image recording unit and the position-time recording unit to carry out the recording operations with the respective recording times being synchronous to each other.

An image collecting and retrieving system comprising:

• at least one image collecting device which includes an image recording unit which records a sequence of picked-up image data together with the image pickup times;
• an image reading unit which reads the sequence of image data;
• a position acquiring unit which acquires attribute information containing at least an image pickup position and image pickup time;
• a position-time recording unit which records the attribute information acquired by the position acquiring unit;
• a recording control unit which controls the image recording unit and the position-time recording unit to carry out the recording operations with the respective recording times being synchronous to each other;
• and
• a transmission processing unit which successively transmits the sequence of image data read by the image reading unit and the attribute information, and
• an image retrieving device connected to the at least one image collecting device, the image retrieving device includes
• a receiving processing unit which receives the sequence of image data and the attribute information transmitted from the at least one image collecting device;
• an image data holding unit which holds the sequence of image data received by the receiving processing unit;
• an attribute information holding unit which holds the attribute information received by the receiving processing unit;
• a matching unit which matches the sequence of image data held in the image data holding unit with the attribute information read by the attribute information reading unit based upon the image pickup times;
• an image database which holds the matching relationship that has been determined by the matching unit;
• a map data holding unit which holds map data;
• a map display processing unit which displays the map data on a map display unit based upon the map data;
• an image retrieving unit which retrieves the image database;
• a locus display processing unit which allows the image retrieving unit to retrieve for image data having image pickup positions within a map displayed by the map display unit, and displays the retrieved pickup positions on the map as a locus;
• an image display unit which displays the sequence of image data;
• a position specifying unit which specifies a position of the map displayed on the map display unit;
• and
• an image processing unit which acquires image data corresponding to the image pickup position in the vicinity of the position specified by the position specifying unit from the image data holding unit, and reproduces and displays the resulting image data on the image display unit.