A body-mounted camera system for capturing user-view images without head-mounted camera

In this paper, we propose a body-mounted system to capture the user´s experience as multiple-sensor information. The proposed system consists of three cameras (stereo cameras and one wide-angle camera) and other sensors (a microphone, a GPS (global positioning system), a digital compass, and an acceleration sensor). The stereo cameras are used for capturing the user´s head motions, while the wide-angle color camera is used for capturing the user´s frontal view images. An image region approximately corresponding to the user´s view is then synthesized from the wide-angle image based on the estimated human head motions. Other sensors record audio, global position and pose information. These data contain significant information for recording/analyzing human activities and can be used in wider application domains such as a digital diary or interaction analysis. In addition, this system can overcome the disadvantages of head-mounted cameras in terms of the ease of putting on/taking off the device and its less obtrusive visual impact on other persons. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system.