Digital camera or digital video camera and method for acquiring images

• US 20030164880A1
• Filed: 12/11/2002
• Published: 09/04/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rainer Mockler
• Original Assignee: Rainer Mockler
• Inventors: Mockler, Rainer
• Granted Patent: US 7,436,433 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/207.99
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/58 Means for changing the camera field of view without moving the camera body, e.g. nutating or panning of optics or image sensors

Abstract

The invention relates to a digital camera or digital video camera comprising an circular objective, a sensor (5) for acquiring and digitising image information and means for storing the digitised image information, in which all of the image information projected by the objective and contained in an image circle is acquired, disgtised and stored for further processing. A digital camera of this type enables full use to be made of the objective capacity.

Claims

1. A digital camera (1, 21, 50) or a digital video camera having a lens element (4, 24), having a sensor (5, 25, 51) for capturing and digitizing image information and having means for storing the digitized image information, characterized in that means are provided for capturing, digitizing and storing the entire image information which is imaged by means of the lens element and contained in an image area.

2. The camera as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that a circular display (7) for displaying the image area is provided on the digital camera (1, 21, 50).

3. The camera as claimed in claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the digital camera (1, 21, 50) has a circular viewfinder and a circular sensor (5, 25) for capturing images.

4. The camera as claimed in one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the digital camera (1, 21, 50) has means for equalizing in terms of perspective the digitized image information which is projected by the lens element (4, 24) and captured by the capturing means.

5. The camera as claimed in one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the camera (1, 21, 50) has a first inclination sensor (28).

6. The camera as claimed in one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the capturing means are rotatably mounted.

7. The camera as claimed in one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the camera (1, 21, 50) has an oblique position sensor (9, 52).

8. The camera as claimed in claim 6 or 7, characterized in that an actuator motor (9, 54) is provided with which the rotatably mounted capturing means can be rotated in accordance with the oblique position measured by the oblique position sensor (9, 54).

9. The camera as claimed in one of the preceding claims 2 to 5, characterized in that the display (7) is fixedly arranged, and in that means for rotating the digitized image are provided.

10. The camera as claimed in one of the preceding claims, characterized in that means are provided for selecting one or more image excerpts (10, 11, 12, 13) from the image area.

11. The camera as claimed in one of the preceding claims, characterized in that means are provided for transferring the stored image area and/or the stored image excerpts (10, 11, 12, 13) to an external device, preferably a computer or printer.

12. Method for capturing digitized images with a digital camera (1, 21, 50) or a digital video camera, characterized in that the entire image area which is imaged by the lens element (4, 24) of the camera (1, 21, 50) is captured, digitized and stored.

13. The method as claimed in claim 12, characterized in that the digitized images are equalized or distorted in terms of perspective and stored.

14. The method as claimed in claim 13, characterized in that the digitized images are equalized automatically in accordance with an inclination measured by the first inclination sensor (28) in such a way that real perpendicular lines (31) are imaged as perpendicular lines (37).

15. The method as claimed in one of claims 12 to 14, characterized in that an inclination value and/or image angle which is measured by the first inclination sensor (28) is stored with each recorded image.

16. The method as claimed in claim 12, characterized in that the digitized images are manually equalized or distorted in a selective manner.

17. The method as claimed in one of claims 12 to 16, characterized in that an image excerpt is selected from a recorded image (35, 36) or image area and subsequently further processed.

18. Devices for reproducing images, in particular circular screens and plasma screen televisions using the abovementioned methods.