Method of processing images photographed by plural cameras and apparatus for the same

#The present application claims priority to Japanese Patent Application Number 2006-057033, filed Mar. 2, 2006, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference.

#1. Field of the Invention

#The present invention relates to a method of processing images photographed by plural cameras and an apparatus for the same, which photographs the surroundings of a vehicle by plural cameras mounted on the vehicle and synthesizes the photographed images to thereby display an image as if one camera positioned above the vehicle photographed the surroundings of the vehicle.

#FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention;

#FIG. 2 is an operational flow chart of the embodiment;

#FIG. 3 illustrates the operation of the embodiment;

#The present invention displays an easily viewable three-dimensional object near a vehicle as if one camera were positioned above the vehicle, through images by plural cameras mounted on the vehicle that photograph the area outside the vehicle. For this, the invention provides a display method for processing the images photographed by the plural cameras, including: capturing the images photographed by the plural cameras for photographing the surroundings of the vehicle, synthesizing the images into an image viewed as from above the vehicle, and displaying the image; detecting a three-dimensional object by detecting an area wherein the displayed image varies from other areas in the synthesized image; and performing an image processing on the detected three-dimensional object in a manner different from the processing of the image viewed as from above the vehicle, and displaying an image of the three-dimensional object by an image associated with the image viewed as from above the vehicle.

#An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the appended drawings. FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of one embodiment, which generally illustrates the function of displaying a three-dimensional object located near a vehicle in the image display of the top view system that synthesizes images photographed by plural cameras for photographing the surroundings of the vehicle and displays an image of the area surrounding the vehicle with the vehicle located in the center as if using one camera positioned above the vehicle. In the drawing, the functional unit that performs each function can be referred to as a means that performs the function.

#In the example illustrated in FIG. 1, in the same manner as illustrated in FIG. 4, images photographed by cameras 2, 3, 4, 5 that each photograph an area outside of a vehicle 1 are captured by a photographed image capture unit 7 of a display processing unit 6. An image display processing unit 8 performs a predetermined image display processing on the captured images. In the conventional image processing, an upper observation point image processing unit 9 as the top view image processing unit performs image processing relative to an observation point above the vehicle by means of the same method as described for in FIG. 4. The processed image is supplied to an image output display unit 17, and is displayed on a monitor 18.