HTC Patent | Tracking system and method thereof

Patent: Tracking system and method thereof

Publication Number: 20190026904

Publication Date: 2019-01-24

Applicants: HTC

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a tracking system and method thereof. The tracking system comprises a trackable device with an appearance including a feature pattern and a tracking device. The tracking device comprises an optical sensor module configured to capture a first image which covers the trackable device. The tracking device further comprises a processor coupled to the optical sensor module. The processor is configured to retrieve a region of interest (ROI) of the first image based on the feature pattern, and locate a position of each of a plurality of feature blocks in the ROI, where each feature block contains a portion of the feature pattern. The processor further calculates a pose data of the trackable object according to the positions of the feature blocks.

Background

In the conventional method for tracking objects by image recognition, it usually needs to take many consecutive images and identify features in these continuous images to lock the object for tracking. For example, if the object to be tracked has the feature of specific lighting frequency, it is needed to retrieve continuous images, perform image recognition in these images, and estimate the movement of the object through the results of image recognition.

However, the conventional method of tracking objects by analyzing many images needs to perform image recognition in each image respectively. The larger the resolution of the image is, the more it costs to search the object in the image, which results in the burden of tracking objects. How to reduce the burden or the cost of tracking objects is an important issue.

Summary

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a tracking system is disclosed. The tracking system comprises a trackable device and a tracking device. The trackable device comprises at least one feature pattern on an appearance of the trackable device. The tracking device comprises an optical sensing module and a processor. The optical sensing module is configured to capture a first image of the trackable device. The processor, coupled to the optical sensing module, is configured to acquire in the first image a first region of interest corresponding to the feature pattern based on the feature pattern; locate in the first region of interest a plurality of block positions of multiple feature blocks, wherein each feature block comprises part of the feature pattern; and calculate a first pose data of the trackable device according to the plurality of block positions.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a tracking method is disclosed. The tracking method is suitable for tracking a trackable device having at least one feature pattern on its appearance. The method comprises the steps of: capturing a first image including the trackable device; acquiring, based on the feature pattern, in the first image a first region of interest corresponding to the feature pattern; locating in the first region of interest a plurality of block positions of multiple feature blocks, wherein each feature block comprises part of the feature pattern; and calculating a first pose data of the trackable device according to the plurality of block positions.