Line recognition apparatus, line recognition method and line recognition program storage medium

A method of recognizing a line on a surface over which a vehicle moves, using an image of an area ahead of the vehicle captured by an image capturing unit mounted on the vehicle, the method comprising the steps of:

• inputting surface type information of surfaces over which the vehicle moves;
• setting a dividing line, based on the input surface type information, in the captured image area ahead of the vehicle to divide the captured image area into a first image area corresponding to a surface close to the vehicle and a second image area in the captured image area corresponding to a surface far from the vehicle;
• conducting a linear approximation to an image in the first image area to recognize a straight line in the captured image area;
• and
• conducting a curved line approximation to an image in the second image area to recognize a curved line in the captured image area.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a line recognition program that, when executed by a computer having a processor, causes the computer to execute a method of recognizing a line on a surface over which a vehicle moves, using an image of an area ahead of the vehicle captured by an image capturing unit mounted on the vehicle, the method comprising the steps of:

• inputting surface type information of surfaces over which the vehicle moves;
• setting a dividing line, based on the surface type information, in the captured image area ahead of the vehicle to divide the captured image area into a first image area corresponding to a surface close to the vehicle and a second image area in the captured image area corresponding to a surface far from the vehicle;
• conducting a linear approximation to an image in the first image area to recognize a straight line in the captured image area;
• and
• conducting a curved line approximation to an image in the second image area to recognize a curved line in the captured image area.

A line recognition apparatus for recognizing a line on a surface over which a vehicle moves, using an image of an area ahead of the vehicle captured by an image capturing unit mounted to the vehicle, the line recognition apparatus comprising:

• circuitry configured as
• a dividing line setting unit to set a dividing line in the captured image area ahead of the vehicle to divide the captured image area into a first image area corresponding to a surface close to the vehicle and a second image area in the captured image area corresponding to a surface far from the vehicle;
• a straight line recognition unit to conduct a linear approximation to an image in the first image area to recognize a straight line in the captured image area ahead of the vehicle;
• a curved line recognition unit to conduct a curved line approximation to an image in the second image area to recognize a curved line in the captured image area ahead of the vehicle;
• and
• a storage unit to store a plurality of preset memory tables set for each surface type, wherein each of the memory tables stores a parallax threshold obtained from a sample image for each surface type and coordinates of points to set a position of the dividing line on a display screen.

A line recognition apparatus for recognizing a line on a surface over which a vehicle moves, using an image of an area ahead of the vehicle captured by an image capturing unit mounted to the vehicle, the line recognition apparatus comprising:

• circuitry configured as
• a type information input unit to input surface type information of surfaces over which the vehicle moves;
• a dividing line setting unit to set a dividing line, based on the input surface type information, in the captured image area ahead of the vehicle to divide the captured image area into a first image area corresponding to a surface close to the vehicle and a second image area in the captured image area corresponding to a surface far from the vehicle;
• a straight line recognition unit to conduct a linear approximation to an image in the first image area to recognize a straight line in the captured image area ahead of the vehicle;
• a curved line recognition unit to conduct a curved line approximation to an image in the second image area to recognize a curved line in the captured image area ahead of the vehicle;
• and
• a storage unit to store a plurality of preset memory tables set for each surface type, wherein each of the memory tables stores a parallax threshold obtained from a sample image for each surface type and coordinates of points to set a position of the dividing line on a display screen.