Patent ID: 7636105

Claim:
A method of acquiring an image of a target object, the method comprising: a. providing an image acquisition apparatus comprising a fixed position camera having a field of view, a pan-tilt-zoom camera configured to be directed to acquire the image in the field of view of the fixed position camera, and a digital signal processor in communication with the fixed position camera and the pan-tilt-zoom camera; b. automatically self-calibrating the apparatus by: i. selecting a number N of points from an image from the fixed position camera, and selecting a first point from the N points; ii. positioning the pan-tilt-zoom camera at a zero position with respect to the fixed position camera; iii. using a correlation map, selecting a corresponding point from an image from the pan-tilt-zoom camera that corresponds to the first point selected from the image from the fixed position camera; iv. computing theoretical pan and tilt values required to locate the corresponding point at the center of the image of the pan-tilt-zoom camera; v. tracking the location of the corresponding point within the image of the pan-tilt-zoom camera, while moving the pan-tilt-zoom camera until the corresponding point is located at the center of the image of the pan-tilt-zoom camera; and vi. recording empirical pan and tilt values with the corresponding point located at the center of the image of the pan-tilt-zoom camera.