Patent ID: 7924318

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 based on a distance which is calculated between a capture start position of the picture and the desired position is a capture start position of a next picture; 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 the whole panorama picture displayed is a function of selected stored picture data stored according to date and time, wherein a recorded data display area allows selection, from a plurality of date and time options, by utilizing (1) a date box to designate a date of the recorded data to be displayed on the picture display unit by displaying a list of the dates of displayable recorded data in a pull-down menu and (2) a time box to designate a time of the recorded data to be displayed on the picture display unit by displaying a list of the times of displayable recorded data in a pull-down menu, and wherein the recorded data display area shows, from the storage device, recorded data matching the date and time designated by the date box and time box, and wherein a picture within the predetermined coverage area is photographed with the picture photographing direction varied, the coverage area picture is displayed on the picture display unit, the photographing direction is controlled to the desired position by designating the desired position within the coverage area picture, and the whole panorama picture captured with respect to the designated position is displayed on the picture display unit.