JP2020091880A - Vehicle information acquisition system, vehicle information acquisition method, vehicle information acquisition program and terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a vehicle information acquisition system for solving a problem that information comparable between a shooting vehicle and a registered vehicle cannot be displayed. An acquisition unit that acquires an image of at least a part of a license plate attached to a vehicle, a character extraction unit that extracts characters from the license plate portion in the image, and vehicle information and characters of a registered vehicle. It has a vehicle information acquisition unit that acquires vehicle information corresponding to the extracted characters from a storage unit that stores the acquired vehicle information in association with each other, and a display control unit that displays the acquired vehicle information on the display unit. [Selection diagram] Fig. 1

Description

The present invention relates to a vehicle information acquisition system that acquires vehicle information, a vehicle information acquisition method, a vehicle information acquisition program, and a storage medium that stores the vehicle information acquisition program.

An example of a system that reads a number written on a license plate of a vehicle and uses the read characters will be described.

Patent Document 1 describes a system for extracting characters from an image of a license plate of a vehicle and searching a DB (database). The system displays the hit data on the display device as a result of the search. Patent Document 2 describes a system for reading a vehicle number and the like and temporarily storing it. When the system further receives an instruction to end the continuous reading, the temporarily stored numbers are sequentially searched from the vehicle DB. Then, the system displays the search result on the display.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-296785 JP-A-2000-322421

However, the above-mentioned system has a problem in that although it is possible to show the search result of the license plate, it is not possible to display information that allows the photographed vehicle and the registered vehicle to be compared. Therefore, even if the license plate is counterfeited, the user who used the above system could not know the fact. Then, the objective of this invention is providing the vehicle information acquisition system which solves the subject that the information which can be compared with a photography vehicle and a registered vehicle cannot be displayed.

A first system of the present invention is an acquisition unit that acquires an image showing at least a part of a license plate attached to a vehicle, a character extraction unit that extracts characters from the license plate portion in the image, and a registered vehicle. From a storage unit that stores vehicle information and characters in association with each other, a vehicle information acquisition unit that acquires vehicle information corresponding to the extracted characters, and a display control unit that displays the acquired vehicle information on a display unit. , With.

ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the vehicle information acquisition system which can display the information which can be compared with a photography vehicle and a registered vehicle can be provided.

It is a block diagram which shows the structural example of 1st embodiment. It is an explanatory view explaining photography of a license plate. It is an example of information stored in the storage unit 23. It is an example of information stored in the storage unit 23. 6 is an example of a display by the display unit 13. It is a flow chart which shows an example of operation of a first embodiment. It is a block diagram showing an example of composition of a second embodiment. It is explanatory drawing explaining imaging|photography of a vehicle. It is an example of information stored in the storage unit 25. 6 is an example of a display by the display unit 13. It is a flowchart which shows the operation example of 2nd embodiment. It is a block diagram which shows the structural example of 3rd embodiment. It is an example of a display by the display unit. It is an example of a hardware configuration. It is an example of a hardware configuration.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the constituent elements described in the following embodiments are exemplifications, and are not intended to limit the technical scope of the present invention thereto.
(First embodiment)
(Configuration of the first embodiment)
A configuration example of the first embodiment will be described. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a vehicle information acquisition system 1000. In the first embodiment, it is assumed that the present invention is used in a special area where entry of vehicles is restricted at the time of holding an event or the like. Vehicles other than those involved in the event and local residents are prohibited from entering the special area. Therefore, a person who guards the special area patrolles the special area and confirms that the vehicle parked in the special area is a vehicle of a related person or the like registered in advance (hereinafter referred to as a registered vehicle). Alternatively, the person who guards the special area checks the vehicle at the checkpoint provided near the boundary between the special area and another area. At this time, the person who guards the special area confirms whether or not the characters displayed on the license plate attached to the vehicle are those of the registered vehicle.

The license plate is also called a license plate. The characters displayed on the license plate are also called the vehicle registration number and vehicle number. Further, the characters include numbers and symbols.

Here, the license plate is an automobile registration number sign, a vehicle number tag, and a sign, which is obliged to be attached to the vehicle according to traffic laws and the like. License plates typically display a unique letter for each vehicle. Therefore, if the characters written on the license plate are the same as the characters registered in advance, the vehicle is permitted to enter the special area. However, a person who attempts to illegally enter the special area may forge the license plate. In this case, a person who guards the special area may determine a vehicle that is not permitted to enter as a registered vehicle.

Therefore, the vehicle information acquisition system 1000 according to the first embodiment employs the following configuration. Hereinafter, the user of the vehicle information acquisition system 1000 and the user of the mobile terminal 100 will be described as persons guarding the special area.

The vehicle information acquisition system 1000 includes a mobile terminal 100 and a server 200. The mobile terminal 100 is communicatively connected to the server 200 via a wireless or wired network. The mobile terminal 100 includes an acquisition unit 10, a character extraction unit 11, a display control unit 12, a transmission unit 14, a reception unit 15, and a display unit 13. Further, the server 200 includes a receiving unit 20, a vehicle information acquiring unit 21, a transmitting unit 22, and a storage unit 23.

The acquisition unit 10 in the mobile terminal 100 acquires an image showing at least a part of the license plate attached to the vehicle. The image may be captured by a capturing unit (not shown) included in the mobile terminal 100. The imaging unit (not shown) may be, for example, a camera having a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) sensor, a CMOS (Complementary Meta Oxide Semiconductor) sensor, an image processor, or the like. The imaging unit (not shown) converts the received light into image data to generate image data.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the photographing of the license plate by the photographing unit in the mobile terminal 100. The user of the mobile terminal 100 operates the mobile terminal 100 with an unillustrated shooting unit facing the shooting vehicle 1 to shoot a license plate attached to the shooting vehicle 1. The acquisition unit 10 acquires an image generated by an imaging unit (not shown). The image acquired by the acquisition unit 10 only needs to include at least a part of the license plate. The image 2 and the image 3 are examples of images acquired by the acquisition unit 10. Image 2 shows the entire license plate 5 attached to the photographing vehicle 1. On the other hand, part of the license plate 5 is shown in the image 3.

The character extraction unit 11 extracts characters from the license plate portion in the image acquired by the acquisition unit 10. The character extracting unit 11 may specify the license plate portion in the image by pattern recognition or the like. The character extraction unit 11 performs OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processing on the image acquired from the acquisition unit 10 to extract characters.

For example, when the image extracting unit 11 acquires the image 2 in FIG. 2, the character extracting unit 11 extracts the characters “Shinagawa” “300” “sa” “12-34”. Further, the character extraction unit determines which item the extracted character corresponds to based on the position data of the extracted character and the position data of the item stored in advance. The item position data may be stored in the storage unit 23. The position indicated by the position data may be an absolute position in the image or a relative position of each character or item. Further, the item indicates, for example, the content of information that is displayed on the vehicle according to a traffic law. For example, the items include “transportation branch office, etc.”, “type”, “business type”, and “designated number”. The character extraction unit 11 does not have to determine the item corresponding to the character.

The transmission unit 14 in the mobile terminal 100 transmits the character extracted by the character extraction unit 11 and the item corresponding to the character to the server 200. The receiving unit 20 in the server 200 receives the characters and items transmitted by the transmitting unit 14.

The storage unit 23 in the server 200 stores vehicle information of registered vehicles and characters in association with each other.

Here, the vehicle information may be any information about the vehicle. For example, vehicle information includes information such as chassis number, model, body shape, owner information, and other information written on an automobile inspection certificate, information displayed on a license plate attached to the vehicle, an image of the vehicle, and the image. May be the feature amount or the like. An example of information stored in the storage unit 23 is shown in FIG. The characters are divided into items such as "Transportation Bureau", "Type", "Business type", and "Designation number". The letters used as the contents of these items are stipulated to be displayed on a license plate in the traffic laws. Further, the vehicle information includes “vehicle type”, “vehicle name”, “manufacturer”, “year model”, and “color”. The information stored in the storage unit 23 is not limited to that shown in FIG.

From FIG. 3, the letters “Shinagawa” “300” “sa” “12-34” are associated with the vehicle information “normal passenger car” “Pullis” “Toyoda” “H23” “white”. Further, the letters "Shinagawa", "350", "ha", and "34-56" are associated with the vehicle information "normal passenger car" "Erie" "H25" "red". The letters "Kashiwa" "550" "Mimi" "56-78" correspond to the vehicle information "small passenger car" "Aldo" "Suki" "H20" "Black".

Further, the storage unit 23 stores the vehicle information and the comparison image in association with each other. FIG. 4 shows an example of information stored in the storage unit 23. In FIG. 4, the vehicle information “normal passenger car”, “Pullis”, “Toyoda”, “H23”, and “white” correspond to the comparative image “aaa.jpg”. In addition, the vehicle information “normal passenger car”, “Pullis”, “Toyoda”, “H23”, and “black” correspond to the comparative image “bbb.jpg”. The vehicle information “normal passenger car”, “pull liss”, “Toyoda”, “H23”, and “gray” correspond to the comparative image “ccc.jpg”.

The format of the image file is not limited to JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). For example, the format of the image file may be GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), PNG (Portable Network Graphics), BMP (Microsoft Windows (registered trademark) Bitmap Image), or the like.

The comparative image includes an image of a vehicle that satisfies the vehicle information. That is, the comparison image includes an image of a vehicle whose vehicle information such as vehicle type, vehicle name, manufacturer, year, color, etc. matches the registered vehicle. For example, the comparison image “aaa.jpg” includes an image of a vehicle whose vehicle type is a normal passenger vehicle, whose vehicle name is Pullith, whose manufacturer is Toyoda, whose year model is H23, and whose color is white. ing. The comparison image may be an image of a vehicle that is posted in a catalog, a product introduction site, or the like. Further, the comparison image may be an image of a registered vehicle.

The vehicle information acquisition unit 21 receives characters from the reception unit 200. Then, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires the vehicle information corresponding to the extracted character from the storage unit 23. That is, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires the vehicle information corresponding to the character that matches the extracted character from the storage unit 23. For example, it is assumed that the extracted characters are “Shinagawa” “300” “sa” “12-34”, and the storage unit 23 stores the information shown in FIG. In this case, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 refers to the storage unit 23 and refers to the vehicle information “normal passenger car” “pull liss” “Toyoda” “H23” corresponding to the characters “Shinagawa” “300” “sa” “12-34”. Get "white".

At this time, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 may check, for each item, whether or not the extracted character and the character stored in the storage unit 23 match. For example, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 matches the character corresponding to the item “transportation branch office” among the extracted characters with the character corresponding to the item “transportation branch office” among the characters stored in the storage unit 23. To judge. Similarly, with respect to the characters associated with the items of "type", "different for business", and "designated number", it is determined that the characters match. When the characters match for all items, the vehicle information corresponding to the extracted characters may be acquired from the storage unit 23.

Further, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires the item corresponding to the vehicle information from the storage unit 23. For example, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 sets the “normal passenger car” to “vehicle type”, the “pull lis” to “vehicle name”, the “Toyoda” to “maker”, the “H23” to “year”, and the “white” to “color”. And these are acquired. The vehicle information acquisition unit 21 may not acquire the item from the storage unit 23.

Further, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires the vehicle information and the comparison image corresponding to the vehicle information from the storage unit 23. That is, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires, from the storage unit 23, the comparison image corresponding to the vehicle information acquired by the storage unit 23. For example, referring to FIG. 4, when the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires “normal passenger car”, “Pullis”, “Toyoda”, “H23”, and “white” as vehicle information, the comparison image “aaa.jpg” is acquired from the storage unit 23. To do. The transmission unit 22 in the server 200 transmits the vehicle information, the items, and the comparison image acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 to the mobile terminal 100.

The receiving unit 15 in the mobile terminal 100 receives the vehicle information, the items, and the comparison image transmitted from the server 200. The display control unit 12 causes the display unit 13 to display the vehicle information and items acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21. At this time, the display control unit 12 causes the display unit 13 to display the comparison image together with the vehicle information. The display control unit 12 may not display the item on the display unit 13.

The display unit 13 displays vehicle information, items, and comparison images under the control of the display control unit 12. An example of the display by the display unit 13 is shown in FIG. In FIG. 5, the display unit 13 of the mobile terminal 100 displays the comparative image “aaa.jpg”, vehicle information, and items. As described above, the vehicle shown in the comparative image “aaa.jpg” is a normal passenger vehicle, the vehicle name is Pullith, the manufacturer is Toyoda, the year is H23, and the color is white. In addition, the vehicle information displayed by the display unit 13 in FIG. 5 is “normal passenger car”, “pull liss”, “Toyoda”, “H23”, and “white”. The items displayed by the display unit 13 are “vehicle type”, “vehicle name”, “maker”, “year model”, and “color”.

The display on the display unit 13 is not limited to that shown in FIG. For example, the display unit 13 may not display the item. Further, the display unit 13 may display the image acquired by the acquisition unit 10 (the image of the photographing vehicle 1) in addition to the above display. The display unit 13 may display the characters extracted by the character extraction unit 11, that is, the characters displayed on the license plate of the photographing vehicle 1.
(Operation of the first embodiment)
Next, the operation of the vehicle information acquisition system 1000 will be described. FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram for explaining the operation of the vehicle information system 1000.

First, the acquisition unit 10 in the mobile terminal 100 acquires an image showing at least a part of the license plate attached to the vehicle (S1). The image may be captured by a capturing unit (not shown) included in the mobile terminal 100. The imaging unit (not shown) may be, for example, a camera having a CCD sensor, a CMOS sensor, an image processor, or the like. The imaging unit (not shown) converts the received light into data to generate an image.

For example, the acquisition of the image by the acquisition unit 10 may be performed after the user of the mobile terminal 100 starts a predetermined application. For example, when the user activates the application, a photographing unit (not shown) photographs the license plate. Then, the acquisition unit 10 acquires an image from an imaging unit (not shown).

Next, the character extraction unit 11 extracts characters from the license plate portion in the image acquired by the acquisition unit 10 (S2). The character extraction unit 11 performs OCR processing on the image acquired from the acquisition unit 10 to extract characters. The character extraction unit 11 also determines the item corresponding to the extracted character. After that, the transmission unit 14 transmits the characters and items extracted by the character extraction unit 11 to the server 200.

The receiving unit 20 in the server 200 receives the characters and items transmitted by the transmitting unit 14. The vehicle information acquisition unit 21 receives characters and items from the reception unit 20. Then, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires the vehicle information corresponding to the extracted character from the storage unit 23 (S3). At this time, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires an item corresponding to the vehicle information. Further, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires the comparison image corresponding to the acquired vehicle information from the storage unit 23 (S4). The vehicle information acquisition unit 21 may not acquire the item from the storage unit 23.

The transmission unit 22 in the server 200 transmits the vehicle information, the items, and the comparison image acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 to the mobile terminal 100. Then, the receiving unit 15 in the mobile terminal 100 receives the vehicle information, the items, and the comparison image transmitted from the server 200.

The display control unit 12 causes the display unit 13 to display the comparison image together with the vehicle information and items received by the reception unit 15. The display control unit 12 may not display the item on the display unit 13.

As described above, the vehicle information acquisition system 1000 according to the present embodiment can display the vehicle information of the registered vehicle in which the characters of the license plate match those of the photographing vehicle. Furthermore, the vehicle information acquisition system 100 can display an image of a vehicle that satisfies the vehicle information. With this, the user of the mobile terminal 100 can easily understand the appearance by looking at the displayed image without knowing what the appearance of the vehicle with the vehicle name "Pullris" has. You can Therefore, the user can efficiently determine whether or not the photographed vehicle and the registered vehicle match by comparing the image displayed by the mobile terminal 100 with the appearance of the photographed vehicle.

The server 200 may include the character extracting unit 11. In this case, the transmission unit 14 in the mobile terminal 100 transmits the image acquired by the acquisition unit 10 to the server 200. Then, the character extraction unit 11 in the server 200 extracts characters from the license plate portion in the image received from the mobile terminal 100, and transfers the extracted characters to the vehicle information acquisition unit 21.

Further, the storage unit 23 separately has the data in which the characters are associated with the vehicle information and the data in which the vehicle information is associated with the comparison image, but the characters, the vehicle information, and the comparison image are associated with each other. It may have only one data. In this case, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 can acquire the vehicle information corresponding to the character and the comparison image at one time, and thus the processing speed of the vehicle information acquisition system 1000 is improved.

Further, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 may calculate the similarity between the extracted character and the character stored in the storage unit 23, and acquire the vehicle information corresponding to the character having the highest similarity. Further, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 may acquire all the vehicle information corresponding to the character whose similarity is equal to or higher than the threshold value. In this case, the display control unit 12 may display all the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 on the display unit 23. The display control unit 12 may display the vehicle information on the display unit 23 in order of similarity. Thereby, even when the characters displayed on the license plate in the image are unclear, or when a part of the characters is not photographed, the user can compare the registered vehicle with the photographed vehicle.

Further, if the vehicle character acquisition unit 21 does not store the character whose similarity to the extracted character is equal to or more than a threshold value and the same character as the extracted character in the storage unit 23, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 transmits the character via the transmission unit 22. The message may be transmitted to the mobile terminal 100. After that, the display control unit 12 may cause the display unit 13 to display a message indicating that the photographed vehicle is not registered. This allows the user to know that the shooting vehicle is not a registered vehicle. Alternatively, the display control unit 12 may cause the display unit 13 to display a message that prompts the user to take another image. This allows the user to photograph the same vehicle again and confirm whether or not the vehicle is registered. These messages may be stored in advance in a storage unit (not shown) in the mobile terminal 100, or may be transmitted by the server 200 to the mobile terminal 100.

Further, the storage unit 23 may store information about the owner of the registered vehicle in association with the character. For example, the storage unit 23 may register the face image of the owner of the registered vehicle in association with the character. In this case, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 may acquire the face image together with the vehicle information. The display control unit 12 may display the face image on the display unit 13 together with the vehicle information. As a result, even if the vehicle on which the counterfeit license plate is attached has the same vehicle model, vehicle name, color, etc. as the registered vehicle, the user can confirm the owner of the captured vehicle so that the captured vehicle and the registered vehicle can be confirmed. You can judge whether and match.

Further, although the server 200 has the storage unit 23 in the present embodiment, the storage unit in the present invention may be realized by a plurality of hardware configurations. For example, a storage device in the server 200 stores data in which characters are associated with vehicle information, and a storage device in another server that can communicate with the server 200 stores data in which vehicle information is associated with a comparison image. You may remember.

The information displayed on the license plate is regulated by the Road Transport Vehicle Law in Japan, but may differ in other countries. Therefore, the items of information displayed on the license plate may differ depending on the country. The contents displayed on the license plate are not limited to those described in the present embodiment in consideration of these points.
(Second embodiment)
(Configuration of the second embodiment)
A configuration example of the second embodiment will be described. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a configuration example of the vehicle information acquisition system 1001. The vehicle information acquisition system 1001 differs from the vehicle information acquisition system 1000 in that it includes a vehicle information extraction unit 16, a matching unit 24, and a storage unit 25. The rest of the configuration is the same as that of the first embodiment, so description will be omitted as appropriate.

The acquisition unit 10 acquires an image showing at least a part of the vehicle in addition to an image showing at least a part of the license plate. The image in which at least a part of the vehicle is captured may be captured by a capturing unit (not shown) included in the mobile terminal 100.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the shooting of the shooting vehicle 1 by the shooting unit in the mobile terminal 101. The user of the mobile terminal 101 operates the mobile terminal 101 to photograph the photographing vehicle 1 with the photographing unit (not shown) facing the photographing vehicle 1. Then, the acquisition unit 10 acquires the image generated by the imaging unit (not shown). The image acquired by the acquisition unit 10 only needs to include at least a part of the photographing vehicle 1. However, it is preferable that a portion of the vehicle with many irregularities or a portion that differs depending on the vehicle name is shown in the image. For example, it is preferable that the image includes a vehicle headlight, a grill, a bumper, an emblem, an ornament, a wheel, and the like.

The image 4 and the image 6 are examples of images acquired by the acquisition unit 10. Image 4 shows the entire photographing vehicle 1. On the other hand, a part of the photographing vehicle 1 is shown in the image 6.

The vehicle information extraction unit 16 extracts vehicle information of a vehicle from an image showing at least a part of the vehicle. The vehicle information in this embodiment is, for example, a feature amount of an image. The vehicle information extraction unit 16 extracts a feature amount from the vehicle portion in the image acquired by the acquisition unit 10. The vehicle information extraction unit 16 may identify the vehicle portion in the image by pattern recognition or the like. The extraction of the characteristic amount may be realized by a method such as SIFT (Scale-Invariant Feature Transform) or HOG (Histograms of Oriented Gradients). Here, for example, the vehicle information extraction unit 16 is assumed to extract the feature amount data X from the vehicle portion in the image.

The transmission unit 14 transmits the characters “Shinagawa” “300” “sa” “12-34” extracted by the character extraction unit 11 and the feature amount data X extracted by the vehicle information extraction unit 16 to the server 201.

The storage unit 25 in the server 201 stores the vehicle information of the registered vehicle in association with the characters displayed on the license plate of the registered vehicle. The storage unit 25 stores the feature amount of the image as vehicle information in addition to the information stored in the storage unit 23. The image is an image obtained by actually photographing the registered vehicle. Note that the image may not be an image of a registered vehicle, but may be an image of a vehicle having the same vehicle type, vehicle name, color, etc. as the registered vehicle. For example, the image may be an image of a vehicle published in a catalog, a product introduction site, or the like.

An example of data stored in the storage unit 25 is shown in FIG. From FIG. 9, the characters “Shinagawa” “300” “sa” “12-34” are associated with the feature amount data X. Further, the characters “Shinagawa”, “350”, “ha”, and “34-56” are associated with the feature amount data Y. The characters “Kashiwa” “550” “mi” “56-78” are associated with the feature amount data Z. Since the vehicle information other than the feature amount is the same as that in FIG. 3, the description will be omitted.

The vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires from the storage unit 25 the vehicle characteristics corresponding to the characters “Shinagawa” “300” “sa” “12-34” received by the reception unit 20. From FIG. 9, the vehicle feature corresponding to the characters “Shinagawa” “300” “sa” “12-34” is the feature amount data X, so the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 obtains the feature amount data X that is the vehicle feature. To do. Furthermore, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires “normal passenger car”, “pull liss”, “Toyoda”, “H23”, and “white”, which are vehicle information corresponding to the characters “Shinagawa”, “300”, “sa”, and “12-34”. .

The matching unit 24 acquires the vehicle information extracted by the vehicle information extracting unit 16 from the receiving unit 20. The matching unit 24 also acquires the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21. Then, the matching unit 24 matches the extracted vehicle information with the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21.

After that, the collation unit 24 causes the mobile terminal 101 to transmit the collation result via the transmission unit 22. The collation result is, for example, information such as success or failure of collation and the degree of coincidence. Even if the extracted vehicle information and the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit do not completely match, the matching unit 24 may output the matching result indicating that the matching is successful. For example, when the degree of coincidence between the extracted vehicle information and the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, the matching unit 24 may output a matching result indicating that the matching is successful.

For example, in the above example, the matching unit 24 acquires the feature amount data X of the image of the imaged vehicle 1. Further, the matching unit 24 acquires the feature amount data X of the image of the registered vehicle. Then, the collation unit 24 collates these acquired feature amounts and causes the transmission unit 22 to transmit the collation result.

The transmission unit 22 transmits the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 and the matching result obtained by the matching unit 24 to the mobile terminal 100. For example, the transmission unit 22 transmits the characters “normal passenger car”, “pull liss”, “Toyoda”, “H23”, and “white” acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 and the matching result. The transmitting unit 22 may transmit the characteristic amount acquired by the vehicle information acquiring unit 21.

The display control unit 12 causes the display unit 13 to display the verification result obtained by the verification unit 24 together with the vehicle information received by the reception unit 15 from the server 201. FIG. 10 shows a display example by the display unit 13. From FIG. 10, the display unit 13 displays the characters “normal passenger car”, “Pullis”, “Toyoda”, “H23”, and “white” and the matching result with “matching success”.
(Operation of Second Embodiment)
Next, the operation of the vehicle information acquisition system 1001 will be described. FIG. 11 is a sequence diagram for explaining the operation of the vehicle information system 1001. Descriptions of operations similar to those of the vehicle information acquisition system 1000 shown in FIG. 10 will be appropriately omitted.

The acquisition unit 10 in the mobile terminal 100 acquires an image in which at least a part of the vehicle is captured after characters are extracted from the image in which at least a part of the license plate is captured (S2). The image may be captured by a capturing unit (not shown) included in the mobile terminal 100, like the image acquired in S1. If at least a part of the vehicle is shown in the image acquired in S1, the acquisition unit 10 does not have to acquire the image again. Further, the acquisition unit 10 may acquire an image of at least a part of the vehicle before acquiring an image of at least a part of the license plate (S1).

Then, the vehicle information extraction unit 16 extracts the vehicle information of the vehicle from the image showing at least a part of the vehicle (S6). The vehicle information in this embodiment is, for example, a feature amount of an image. The vehicle information extraction unit 16 extracts a feature amount from the vehicle portion in the image acquired by the acquisition unit 10. The vehicle information extraction unit 16 may identify the vehicle portion in the image by pattern recognition or the like. The extraction of the characteristic amount may be realized by a method such as SIFT (Scale-Invariant Feature Transform) or HOG (Histograms of Oriented Gradients). The order of S1, S2, and S6 is not limited to this.

The transmission unit 14 transmits the characters extracted by the character extraction unit 11 and the vehicle information extracted by the vehicle information extraction unit 16 to the server 201. The receiving unit 200 in the server 200 receives the characters and the vehicle information transmitted by the transmitting unit 14.

The vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires vehicle information corresponding to the extracted character from the storage unit 25 (S3). The vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 is, for example, a feature amount of an image.

The matching unit 24 acquires the vehicle information extracted by the vehicle information extraction unit 16 and the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21. Then, the matching unit 24 matches the extracted vehicle information with the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit (S7). After that, the collation unit 24 causes the mobile terminal 101 to transmit the collation result via the transmission unit 22.

The collation result is, for example, information such as success or failure of collation and the degree of coincidence. Even if the extracted vehicle information and the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit do not completely match, the matching unit 24 may output the matching result indicating that the matching is successful. For example, when the degree of coincidence between the extracted vehicle information and the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, the matching unit 24 may output a matching result indicating that the matching is successful.

The display control unit 12 causes the display unit 13 to display the matching result obtained by the matching unit 24 together with the vehicle information received by the receiving unit 15 from the server 201 (S8).

As described above, the vehicle information acquisition system 1001 of the present embodiment can collate the vehicle information of the photographing vehicle with the vehicle information of the registered vehicle and display the collation result. With this, the user of the mobile terminal 100 can know whether or not the registered vehicle and the image-capturing vehicle are the same in points other than the license plate without comparing the registered vehicle and the image-capturing vehicle. That is, the user can more efficiently determine whether the registered vehicle and the imaged vehicle match.

Although the vehicle information extraction unit 16 of the present embodiment acquires the characteristic amount from the image of the imaged vehicle 1, the vehicle information acquired from the image is not limited to the characteristic amount. For example, the vehicle information may be a ratio of lengths of characteristic portions of the vehicle. The characteristic portion of the vehicle may be, for example, a wheel base of the vehicle, a vehicle height, a total length, or the like. The vehicle information extraction unit 16 may extract the length of the characteristic portion of the vehicle by image recognition processing. Alternatively, the vehicle information extraction unit 16 may extract the length of the characteristic portion of the vehicle from the information input by the user via an input unit (not shown). The input unit (not shown) may be a mouse, a touch panel, a keyboard, or the like.

At this time, the vehicle information extraction unit 16 extracts the ratio of the lengths of the characteristic portions by dividing the lengths of the extracted two or more characteristic portions. The mobile terminal 101 transmits the ratio of the lengths of the extracted characteristic parts to the server 201. The storage unit 25 in the server 201 stores the ratio of the lengths of the characteristic portions of the vehicle as vehicle information. Then, the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 acquires from the storage unit 25 the ratio of the lengths of the characteristic portions corresponding to the extracted characters. The collation unit 25 collates the ratio of the lengths of the characteristic portions extracted by the vehicle information extraction unit 16 and the ratio of the lengths of the characteristic portions acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 21.

Further, the vehicle information extraction unit 16 may extract the vehicle information item by item. For example, the vehicle information extraction unit 16 may extract the characteristic amount of the entire vehicle and the length of the characteristic portion of the vehicle. In this case, the matching unit 24 may match the vehicle characteristics item by item. Then, the matching unit 24 may calculate the overall matching score based on the matching score of each item and output the matching result.
(Third embodiment)
(Structure of the third embodiment)
A configuration example of the third embodiment will be described. FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a configuration example of the vehicle information acquisition system 1002. The vehicle information acquisition system 1002 includes an acquisition unit 300, a character extraction unit 400, a vehicle information acquisition unit 500, and a display control unit 600.

The acquisition unit 300 acquires an image showing at least a part of the license plate attached to the vehicle. The image may be captured by a capturing unit (not shown). The imaging unit (not shown) may be, for example, a camera having a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) sensor, a CMOS (Complementary Meta Oxide Semiconductor) sensor, an image processor, or the like. The imaging unit (not shown) converts the received light into image data to generate image data. The image capturing unit (not shown) may be present in the vehicle information acquisition system 1002 or in an external system.

The character extraction unit 400 extracts characters from the license plate portion in the image acquired by the acquisition unit 300. The character extraction unit 400 performs OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processing on the image acquired from the acquisition unit 300 to extract characters.

The vehicle information acquisition unit 500 acquires vehicle information corresponding to the extracted character from a storage unit (not shown) that stores the vehicle information of the registered vehicle and the character in association with each other. The storage unit (not shown) may exist in the vehicle information acquisition system 1002 or in an external system. The vehicle information may be any information about the vehicle. For example, vehicle information is information displayed on a license plate attached to the vehicle (vehicle chassis number), information described in the vehicle verification of the vehicle, an image of the vehicle, a feature amount of the image, ownership of the vehicle. Information about the person may be used.

The display control unit 600 causes the display unit (not shown) to display the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit 500. The display unit (not shown) may be present inside the vehicle information acquisition system 1002 or may be present in an external system.

A display example on the display unit is shown in FIG. In FIG. 13, the display unit 700 displays “normal passenger car” as the vehicle type and “white” as the vehicle color as the vehicle information of the registered vehicle. However, the vehicle information displayed on the display unit is not limited to the vehicle type or the vehicle color.

The vehicle information acquisition system 1003 of this embodiment can display the vehicle information of the registered vehicle determined based on the license plate of the photographing vehicle. That is, the user of the vehicle information acquisition system 1003 can compare the photographed vehicle with the registered vehicle by comparing the appearance of the photographed vehicle and the displayed vehicle information of the registered vehicle. In other words, the present embodiment can provide a vehicle information acquisition system that can display information that allows the photographed vehicle and the registered vehicle to be compared.
(Hardware configuration)
Next, a hardware configuration example of the present invention will be described. 14 and 15 are diagrams showing an example of the hardware configuration of the vehicle information acquisition systems 1000 to 1002. The computer 1003 shown in FIG. 14 and the mobile terminal shown in FIG. 15 are communicatively connected by wireless or wire.

Computer 1003 may be any conventional computer. For example, the computer 1003 may be a notebook PC, desktop PC, server, workstation, blade server, or the like. The computer 1003 may be communicatively connected to a server, another computer, or the like.

From FIG. 14, the computer 1003 includes a processor 1402, a memory 1404, a storage 1406, a north bridge 1408 connecting to the memory 1404, and an expansion slot 1410. The computer 1003 also includes a south bridge 1412 that connects to the communication interface 1414 and the storage 1406. These components are connected to each other by a bus and are fixed to the motherboard.

The processor 1402 reads and executes an instruction stored in the memory 1404, the storage 1406, or the like. Processor 1402 may execute instructions to display the image on a display device (not shown).

The processor 1402 reads and executes the programs stored in the memory 1404 and the storage 1406. The processor 1402 may be a circuit such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits). Further, the processor 1402 realizes the functions of the vehicle information acquisition unit 500 and the matching unit 24. That is, the processor 1402 realizes the functions of the vehicle information acquisition unit 500 and the matching unit 24 by reading the programs stored in the memory 1404 and the storage 1406. The processor 1402 may also realize the function of the vehicle information acquisition unit 21.

The memory 1404 is a computer-readable storage medium that stores information. The memory 1404 may be a volatile storage medium such as a RAM or a non-volatile storage medium such as a ROM. Moreover, the memory 1404 may be an optical disk, a magnetic disk, or the like. The storage 1406 may be a large-capacity computer-readable storage medium. The storage 1406 may be, for example, a floppy (registered trademark) disk, a hard disk drive, an optical disk, a flash memory, or the like. The instructions included in the computer program stored in the computer-readable storage medium are executed to realize the above-described embodiment. Further, the memory 1404 realizes the storage unit 26. The storage unit 26 may be the storage unit 23 of the first embodiment or the storage unit 25 of the second embodiment.

The north bridge 1408 connects parts such as a CPU and a memory, which are the brains of a computer, and controls the timing and speed of data transfer. The north bridge 1408 mainly bridges data with a device that operates at high speed. On the other hand, the south bridge 1412 bridges data with a device having a relatively low speed. For example, the north bridge 1408 may be connected to the memory 1404, the display device 14, and an expansion slot 1410 capable of receiving an expansion card (not shown). The south bridge 1412 may be connected to the storage 1406 and the communication interface 1414.

The communication interface 1414 may include various communication ports such as USB, Bluetooth (registered trademark), Ethernet (registered trademark), and wireless Ethernet. Further, these communication ports may be connected to one or a plurality of input/output devices such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a scanner, a wireless LAN (Local Area Network) adapter, a communication device such as a router. That is, the computer 1003 may be connected to the mobile terminal 1004 via the communication interface 1414. Further, the communication interface 1414 may include a wireless LAN adapter. The communication interface 1414 realizes the functions of the reception unit 20 and the transmission unit 22.

Next, the mobile terminal 1004 shown in FIG. 15 will be described. The mobile terminal 1004 may be a mobile terminal such as a mobile phone, a smartphone, a PDA (personal digital assistant), or the like.

The mobile terminal 1004 may include a display 1454, a transceiver 1468, an audio codec 1460, a control interface 1458, and a display interface 1456. The mobile terminal 1004 may further include a communication interface 1466, a processor 1452, a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiving module 1470, an additional memory 1474, a memory 1464, and an external interface 1462.

The display 1454 may be, for example, a TFT-LCD (Thin-film-Transistor Liquid Crystal Display), an OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) display, or another display. Further, the display may be connected to the control interface 1458 or the display interface 1456. The processor 1452 may exchange information with the user of the mobile terminal 1004 via the control interface 1458 and the display interface 1456. The display 1454 realizes the function of the display unit 13. The display 1454 may also realize the function of the display unit 700.

The display interface 1456 may be configured by a circuit. The display interface 1456 controls the display to display video and other information to the user. The display interface 1456 realizes the function of the display control unit 600. Further, the display interface 1456 may realize the function of the display control unit 12.

The control interface 1458 receives commands from the user. The control interface 1458 may then translate the received command for delivery to the processor 1452.

The mobile terminal 1004 may also include an external interface 1462 that enables communication between an external device and the processor 1402. The external interface 1462 may provide wired communication or wireless communication to the mobile terminal 1004.

The expansion memory 1474 is connected to the mobile terminal 1004 via the expansion interface 1472. The additional memory 1474 may include, for example, a SIMM (Single In Line Memory Module) card interface. Further, the additional memory 1474 may give an additional storage area to the mobile terminal 1004 to store an application and other information. Further, the additional memory 1474 may store information regarding security. The additional memory 1474 may function as a security management device of the mobile terminal 1004. For example, the additional memory 1474 is programmed with a command for realizing safe use of the mobile terminal 1004.

The mobile terminal 1004 performs wireless communication via the communication interface 1466. That is, the mobile terminal 1004 may communicate with the computer 1003 via the communication interface 1466. The communication interface 1466 implements the functions of the transmitter 14 and the receiver 15.

The communication interface 1466 may include a digital signal processing circuit. The communication interface 1466 may implement communication under a mode or protocol such as GMS (Global System for Mobile Communication), SMS (Short Message Service), and EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service). Alternatively, the communication interface 1466 may realize communication under a mode or protocol such as MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), or TDMA (time division multiple access).

In addition, the communication interface 1466 can realize communication in a mode such as a PDC (Personal Digital Cellular), a WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a CDMA2000, a GPRS (General packet radio service), and the like. The communication described above occurs, for example, via transceiver 1468. Further, communication in a narrow area, for example, communication using Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (registered trademark) or the like may be generated via the transceiver 1468.

The GPS reception module 1470 may provide data used by an application operating on the mobile terminal 1004. The data may be data related to position and navigation, for example.

In addition, the mobile terminal 1004 may perform voice communication via the audio codec 1460. The audio codec 1460 acquires voice information from the user and converts it into digital information that can be used. Further, the audio codec 1460 produces a voice that can be heard by the user. The information handled by the audio codec 1460 may be a voice call, a recorded sound (voice message, music file, etc.), a sound generated by an application on the mobile terminal 1004, or the like.

The processor 1452 and the memory 1464 are the same as those in the computer 1003, and therefore description thereof will be omitted. The processor 1452 realizes the functions of the acquisition unit 800, the character extraction unit 400, and the vehicle information extraction unit 16.

The vehicle information acquisition systems 1000 to 1002 may be realized by either the computer 1003 or the mobile terminal 1004. In this case, for example, the processor 1402 in the computer 1003 may also realize the functions of the acquisition unit 800, the character extraction unit 400, the vehicle information extraction unit 16, and the display control unit 600. Further, for example, the processor 1452 may realize the functions of the vehicle information acquisition unit 21 and the matching unit 24.

The above-described embodiments are merely examples embodying the present invention, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the gist of the present invention described in the claims.

1 vehicle 2 image 3 image 4 image 5 license plate 6 image 10 acquisition unit 11 character extraction unit 12 display control unit 13 display unit 14 transmission unit 15 reception unit 16 vehicle information extraction unit 20 reception unit 21 vehicle information acquisition unit 22 transmission unit 23 Storage unit 24 Collating unit 25 Storage unit 26 Storage unit 100 Mobile terminal 101 Mobile terminal 200 Server 201 Server 300 Acquisition unit 400 Character extraction unit 500 Vehicle information acquisition unit 600 Display control unit 700 Display unit 1000 Vehicle information acquisition system 1001 Vehicle information acquisition system 1002 Vehicle Information Acquisition System 1003 Computer 1004 Mobile Terminal 1402 Processor 1404 Memory 1406 Storage 1408 Northbridge 1410 Expansion Slot 1412 Southbridge 1414 Communication Interface 1452 Processor 1454 Display 1456 Display Interface 1458 Control Interface 1460 Audio Codec 1466 Communication Interface 1468 Transceiver 1462 External Interface 1464 Memory 1470 GPS receiver module 1472 Expansion interface 1474 Expansion memory

The present invention relates to a vehicle information acquisition system for acquiring vehicle information, a vehicle information acquisition method, a vehicle information acquisition program, and a terminal .

Claims (5)

An acquisition unit for acquiring an image showing at least a part of the license plate attached to the vehicle,
A character extraction unit for extracting characters from the license plate portion in the image,
A vehicle information acquisition unit that acquires vehicle information corresponding to the extracted characters from a storage unit that stores the vehicle information of the registered vehicle and the characters in association with each other,
A display control unit for displaying the acquired vehicle information on a display unit;
Vehicle information acquisition system having a. The vehicle information acquisition unit, together with the vehicle information, acquires a comparative image corresponding to the vehicle information from the storage unit,
The vehicle information acquisition system according to claim 1, wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display the comparison image together with the vehicle information. A vehicle information extraction unit that extracts vehicle information of the vehicle from an image showing at least a part of the vehicle;
And a collating unit that collates the extracted vehicle information with the vehicle information acquired by the vehicle information acquisition unit,
The vehicle information acquisition system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the display control unit further causes the display unit to display a matching result obtained by the matching unit. Obtain an image of at least a part of the license plate attached to the vehicle,
Extract characters from the license plate portion in the image,
From the storage unit that stores the vehicle information of the registered vehicle and the character in association with each other, obtain the vehicle information corresponding to the extracted character,
Display the acquired vehicle information on the display unit,
Vehicle information acquisition method. On the computer,
An acquisition process for acquiring an image showing at least a part of the license plate attached to the vehicle,
A character extraction process for extracting characters from the license plate portion in the image,
Vehicle information acquisition processing for acquiring vehicle information corresponding to the extracted character from a storage unit that stores the vehicle information of the registered vehicle and the character in association with each other,
A display control process for displaying the acquired vehicle information on a display unit;
A vehicle information acquisition program for executing.

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