Patent ID: 7990422

Claim:
A method of automatically expanding the zoom capability of a wide angle video camera comprising the steps of: capturing a wide angle video image using a master camera which is capable of generating a transformed view image of all or part of said wide angle image; monitoring at least a part of the area covered by said master camera from a steerable slave video camera which is in close proximity to said master camera; automatically controlling the field of vision of said slave camera from said master camera, wherein at least some of the control signals to said slave camera are fed from the master camera to achieve an approximate match between said transformed view and estimated said slave camera view; replacing said transformed view of said master camera by said image from said slave camera in master camera output to achieve expanded zoom capability for said master camera; and replacing at least one image output portion from said master camera with a second image portion, which is registered to said one portion, to accordingly output a single image; wherein video output from said slave camera is fed to said master camera for reverse transformation into a similar projection as said wide angle image; and wherein said reverse transformed image is compared to said wide angle image for determining adjustments to said control signals for controlling said slave camera.