Patent ID: 7218352

Claim:
A monitoring system comprising: a picture photographing unit for photographing a picture; a photographing direction varying unit for varying a photographing direction of the picture photographing unit; a storage unit for storing picture data; a picture display unit; and a controller which stores, in the storage unit, one of a source picture including a plurality of still frame pictures photographed in the photographing directions within a predetermined coverage area within a predetermined range of the photographing direction varying unit and a picture which is obtained by compressing the source picture, and displays, on the picture display unit, a whole panorama picture generated from the one of the source picture and the compressed picture, wherein an arbitrary point of the picture display unit is indicated, only a still frame picture at the indicated arbitrary point is read from one of the source picture and the compressed picture stored in the storage unit, and the read still frame picture is displayed on the picture display unit at a predetermined position thereof, wherein when the still frame picture at the indicated arbitrary point is read, one of the source picture and the compressed picture, stored in the storage unit, is designated with which a reading operation starts, the source pictures and compressed pictures are successively read in a retrospective order from the picture designated to start the reading operation with to older pictures, and only a still frame picture at the indicated arbitrary point is read from the one of the source picture and the compressed picture each time each of the source picture and the compressed picture is read.