IMAGE CONTROL APPARATUS

There is provided an image control apparatus which incorporates an automatic configuration mechanism for setting parameters used in event detection, to thereby perform efficient event detection, and improve quality and reliability of image monitoring control. An encoding section encodes an image from a monitoring camera. A reduced image generation section performs simplified decoding of an encoded image to generate a reduced image. A feature amount extraction section detects an image event from the reduced image and extracts feature amounts therefrom. A screen display control section performs screen display control such that a listing of static images of the reduced image is displayed on a display, and a detection event can be set which is an event to be detected. A detection dictionary-preparing section measures variance values from the feature amounts of the detection event to thereby prepare a detection dictionary containing detection parameters which are feature amounts having small variance values. An event detection control section calculates distances between the detection dictionary and the feature amounts to determine a detection range. An image recording section compares the distances and a threshold value for recording images, and based on a result of the comparison, records monitored images.