Digital zoom camera with image sharpening and suppression

The intention of zooming in a video camera is to obtain more detailed visual information than the full frame view. The optical zooming mechanisms provide this additional information, however, when optically zoomed, the camera no longer detects the full frame view, which was detected before zooming. Digital zooming can detect the full view at all times, however, fails to provide additional visual information when zoomed. In applications such as visual surveillance and manufacturing quality measurement, it is required to detect the full frame view at all times, the camera should be capable of providing additional visual information when zoomed to the region of interest (ROI). This paper presents a video camera system incorporating an autonomous pan, tilt and zoom functionality based on ROI decided upon motion detection capability, which provides more visual information in zoomed modes while detecting the full view at all times. The intelligent ROI decision can be made not only based on motion but also shape, color, sizes etc. of targeted objects for tracking. Image sharpening and noise reduction methods are also provided within the camera system. Standard testing results indicate that this camera system can resolve up to 800 TV lines and produces comparable color quality to other CCD based CCTV surveillance cameras, especially at good lighting conditions.