Patent Document ID: 8294814
Application ID: 12658385
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An improved method for repositioning an image capture device relative to a subject of interest according to six degrees of freedom comprising the steps of determining actual measurement on an actual plane of interest from an acquired image of a scene of interest, said acquired image of said scene of interest including an image of said plane of interest, said acquired image displayed to user on a display means, said display means equipped with a user interface, said method comprising the steps of: a) initializing an imaging system, where said imaging system includes an image capture device, an automatic repositioning apparatus which also serves to provide a mount for said image capture device, and which, in turn, is mounted on a stable platform, and said automatic repositioning apparatus is connected to a computational device which includes a user interface, wherein initializing includes the steps of: a.1) obtaining a reference image of the subject of interest, wherein said reference image is acquired of a random or arbitrary scene of interest, identifying fixed points in said reference image, and wherein said reference image comprises a computational model/3 dimensional model generated from an initial image of said scene of interest, wherein said reference image includes multiple reference points in 3-dimensional space; a.2) repositioning the image capture device relative to the subject of interest, where such repositioning uses six degrees of freedom; b) imaging the subject of interest; c) computing the difference between the reference image of the subject of interest and the image capture device image, said computational device capable of receiving the reference image image capture such that when said imaging device captures a new image of the scene of interest, which image is input to the computational device, as is the reference image of scene of interest, such that said computational device determines the difference in position of the image capture device, transmits position difference information to the automatic repositioning apparatus and indicates via the user interface amount and direction of movement to accurately reposition the image capture device relative to scene of interest; d) refining the position of the image capture device by the automatic repositioning apparatus and where the required displacement is outside the range of motion of the automatic repositioning apparatus, then the user interface instructs the operator to move the stable platform the required distance in the required directions, so that the image capture device is in the same position relative to the subject of interest as that position from which the reference image was obtained, where such refining the position of the image capture device occurs along six degrees of freedom, wherein said improvement comprises the steps of: selecting at least four co-planar but non-collinear points from said 3D model, along with pixel positions, within the acquired image, such that a 2D projective transformation can be generated; using said 2D projective transformation to map x,y pixel positions in the plane of the acquired image onto X,Y real world measurements on the plane in the real world plane of interest, such that any other known co-planar point can be calculated and communicated.