Abstract: The invention relates to method of detecting elliptical structures (10) in an image (9), comprising: detecting circular arc-shaped structures (11) in the image (9) using a circle Hough transform (CHT) of the image (9), wherein a radius and a center point (12) are determined for each circular arc-shaped structure (11), identifying pairs of circular arc-shaped structures (11) consisting of two of the detected circular arc-shaped structures (11) with substantially equal radii, defining, for each one of these pairs, a search area (14) within the image (9) depending on the center points (12) of the respective pair of circular arc-shaped structures (11), searching in the search area (14) defined for any given pair of circular arc-shaped structures (11), for a pair of edges (16) connecting these two circular arc-shaped structures (11). The invention further relates to a device for detecting elliptical structures in an image.

Abstract: The invention relates to an image processing method for automatically extracting distorted circular image elements (109; 601) from an image (101), comprising the steps of determining, by means of a circle detection (102), at least one circular image section (103; 301, 301?) as a first approximation of at least one distorted circular image element (109; 601), then determining, via a statistical colour analysis of the at least one determined circular image section (301, 301?), whether the circular image section (301, 301?) belongs to one of one or more predefined colour classes and, in case thereof, assigning the circular image section to the respective colour class, and, finally, determining an exact shape (109; 601) of the at least one distorted circular element by starting with at least one of the one or more determined circular image sections assigned to one of the one or more colour classes and varying the image section to maximize a value of a colour-class specific function of the image section.

Abstract: The invention relates to method of classifying an object (10) in an image (9), the method comprising the steps of: defining an image area (11) located within the object (10) in the image (9), decomposing the image area (11) into an array of subareas (13), defining an array of aggregated pixel values by calculating, for each of the subareas (13), an aggregated pixel value of the respective subarea (13), calculating a gradient array depending on differences between the aggregated pixel values of adjacent subareas (13), analyzing the gradient array, identifying, depending on a result of the analyzing step, the object (10) as belonging to a class of a predefined set of classes. Furthermore, the invention relates to a device (4) for analyzing an object (10) contained in an image (9) and to a driver assistance system as well as to a vehicle (1) containing such a device (4).

Abstract: The invention relates to a surround view system for a vehicle (1), comprising at least one camera (2) to be positioned in or on the vehicle (1) to capture at least a part of the vehicle's (1) surroundings, an evaluation unit (7) for processing images captured by the at least one camera (2) and at least one display (8) for displaying a top-view image generated by the evaluation unit (7). Hereby, the evaluation unit (7) is configured for obtaining the top-view image by calculating a projection of the captured images onto a virtual projection surface and by calculating a top-view of the projection on the virtual projection surface. The virtual projection surface comprises a flat bottom part (4) and a rising part (5) adjacent to the flat bottom part (4), wherein, in an area comprising the rising part at least at one side of the vehicle (1) at least over a length of the vehicle (1), a curvature of the virtual projection surface is zero in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle (1).