Apparatus for identifying individual animals and image processing method

An individual animal identification apparatus comprising:

• an eye region image pick-up unit for capturing images of an eye, including an iridial granule in an iridial granule region, of an animal at a plurality of camera angles to obtain input images, said animal to be registered in a registration mode of the apparatus and to be identified in an identification mode of the apparatus;
• a camera angle determining section for deriving data on said camera angles;
• a feature extracting section for extracting a feature of said iridial granule region from said input images to derive corresponding feature data;
• a dictionary memory for, in said registration mode, registering said feature data of the animal to be registered along with the corresponding camera angle data;
• and
• a collating section for, in said identification mode, collating the feature data of the animal to be identified, derived at said feature extracting section, with the feature data registered in said dictionary memory during said registration mode and having the camera angle data corresponding to the camera angle data of the feature data of the animal to be identified, so as to determine whether the animal to be identified is registered in said dictionary memory.

An individual animal identification apparatus comprising:

• an eye region image pick-up unit for capturing images of an eye, including an iridial granule in an iridial granule region, of an animal to obtain input images, said animal to be registered in a registration mode of the apparatus and to be identified in an identification mode of the apparatus;
• a feature extracting section for extracting a feature of said iridial granule region from said input images to derive corresponding feature data;
• a data classifying means for, in said registration mode, classifying a plurality of the feature data, received from said feature extracting section, of the animal to be registered into a plurality of groups based on image pick-up conditions, respectively;
• a representative dictionary setting means for, in said registration mode, determining representative feature data in each of said groups and registering in a dictionary memory said representative feature data determined in each of said groups;
• and
• a collating section for, in said identification mode, collating the feature data of the animal to be identified, derived at said feature extracting section, with each of said representative feature data registered in said dictionary memory during said registration mode, so as to determine whether the animal to be identified is registered in said dictionary memory.

An individual animal identification apparatus comprising:

• an eye region image pick-up unit for capturing an image of an eye, including an iridial granule, in an iridial granule region of an animal to obtain an input image, said animal to be registered in a registration mode of the apparatus an to be identified in an identification mode of the apparatus;
• a feature extracting section for extracting a feature of a region of said iridial granule region from said input image to derive corresponding feature data;
• a region selecting means for, in said registration mode, selecting a stable identification region of said iridial granule based on a plurality of the feature data, received from said feature extracting section, of the animal to be registered;
• a dictionary preparing means for, in said registration mode, producing regional feature data of said stable identification region and registering said regional feature data in a dictionary memory;
• and
• a collating section for, in said identification mode, collating the feature data on an identification region of the iridial granule of the animal to be identified, derived at said feature extracting section, with the regional feature data registered in said dictionary memory during said registration mode, so as to determine whether the animal to be identified is registered in said dictionary memory.

An individual animal identification apparatus comprising:

• an eye region image pick-up unit for capturing an image of an eye, including an iridial granule, of an animal to obtain an input image, said animal to be registered in a registration mode of the apparatus and to be identified in an identification mode of the apparatus;
• a position data output means for outputting position data representing a position of said iridial granule relative to a particular position in a region of said eye in said input image, said position data output means including
• a region extracting section for extracting a region of said iridial granule from said input image, deriving a position of the center of gravity of said iridial granule region as said position of said iridial granule and further deriving a position of the center of gravity of a pupil in said eye region as said particular position,
• a shadow removing section for accumulating pixel values along a contour of said iridial granule region extracted at said region extracting section, and determining a contour represented by an accumulated darkest pixel value to be a new contour of said iridial granule region, and
• a center of gravity coordinate calculating section for deriving a distance from the position of the center of gravity of said pupil to the position of the center of gravity of aid iridial granule region as said position data, said center of gravity coordinate calculating section correcting the position of the center of gravity of said iridial granule region corresponding to said new contour so as to derive said position data;
• a memory section for, in said registration mode, registering said position data, received from said position data output means of the animal to be registered;
• a distance calculating section for, in said identification mode, deriving a position difference between said position data, received form said position data output means, of the animal to be identified and each of a plurality of the position data registered in said memory section;
• and
• a collating section for, in said identification mode, selecting the registered position data whose position difference is the smallest and comparing the smallest position difference with a predetermined value, so as to determine whether the animal to be identified is registered in said memory section.