IMAGING APPARATUS

• US 20070091196A1
• Filed: 10/25/2006
• Published: 04/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Inventors: MIYANOHARA, Makoto
• Application Number:
  US11/552,658
• Publication Number:
  US 20070091196A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/335
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 13/08 Anamorphotic objectives
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/68 for stable pick-up of the scene, e.g. compensating for camera body vibrations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/69 Control of means for changing angle of the field of view, e.g. optical zoom objectives or electronic zooming
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/81 for suppressing or minimising disturbance in the image signal generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/2628 Alteration of picture size, shape, position or orientation, e.g. zooming, rotation, rolling, perspective, translation

Abstract

An imaging apparatus including: an optical system which has a distortion in which a compression rate becomes larger along a direction from a center portion to an edge portion; an imaging device which converts an optical image received via the optical system to an electrical signal and outputs image data of a first angle of view; a feature extraction portion that extracts a feature of data which corresponds to a second angle of view among the image data, which includes an optical axis of the optical system and which is smaller than the first angle of view, and outputs as feature data; an object detection portion which outputs a signal which indicates whether or not the object is included in the second angle of view based on the feature data; an angle of view changing portion which selects and outputs the image data corresponding to the second angle of view when the signal input from the object detection portion indicates that the object is included, and which selects and outputs the image data corresponding to the first angle of view when the signal input from the object detection portion does not indicate that the object is included; a distortion correction portion which corrects a distortion in the image data output from the angle of view changing portion; and an image zoom-in/out portion which zooms in/out the image data output from the distortion correction portion in accordance with a desired image size.

Claims

1. An imaging apparatus comprising:

an optical system which has a distortion in which a compression rate becomes larger along a direction from a center portion to an edge portion;

an imaging device which converts an optical image received via the optical system to an electrical signal and outputs image data of a first angle of view;

a feature extraction portion that extracts a feature of data which corresponds to a second angle of view among the image data, which includes an optical axis of the optical system and which is smaller than the first angle of view, and outputs as feature data;

an object detection portion which outputs a signal which indicates whether or not the object is included in the second angle of view based on the feature data;

an angle of view changing portion which selects and outputs the image data corresponding to the second angle of view when the signal input from the object detection portion indicates that the object is included, and which selects and outputs the image data corresponding to the first angle of view when the signal input from the object detection portion does not indicate that the object is included;

a distortion correction portion which corrects a distortion in the image data output from the angle of view changing portion; and

an image zoom-in/out portion which zooms in/out the image data output from the distortion correction portion in accordance with a desired image size.

3. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the feature extraction portion comprises:

an image data correction portion which corrects errors caused by the distortion characteristic of the optical system; and

a feature calculation portion which calculates the feature data based on the image data corrected by the image data correction portion.

4. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the feature extraction portion comprises:

an image data storing portion which stores the image data of a prior image; and

a motion vector detection portion which detects a motion vector based on both the image data stored in the image data storing portion and image data following the prior image data, and outputs the motion vector as feature data, wherein

the object detection portion comprises a vector analysis portion which, based on the motion vector, outputs a signal which indicates whether or not the object is included.

5. The imaging apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the vector analysis portion outputs a signal which indicates that the object is included when an absolute value of the motion vector which is output from the motion vector detection portion is smaller than a predetermined threshold.

6. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the feature extraction portion comprises:

a brightness distribution generation portion which generates a brightness distribution based on the image data and outputs as the feature data; and

the object detection portion comprises a brightness distribution analysis portion which, based on the brightness distribution, outputs a signal which indicates whether or not the object is included.

7. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the feature extraction portion adjusts a center of the second angle of view in order to correspond with the optical axis of the optical system.

2. An imaging apparatus comprising:

an optical system which has a distortion characteristic in which a compression rate becomes larger along a direction from a center portion to an edge portion;

an imaging device which converts an optical image received via the optical system to an electrical signal and outputs image data of a first angle of view;

a feature extraction portion which extracts a feature of the image data and outputs as feature data;

an object detection portion which outputs a signal which indicates whether or not the object is included in the image data based on the feature data;

an object position calculation portion which calculates a position of the object in the image and generates position information when the signal input from the object detection portion indicates that the object is included;

an angle of view determination portion which, based on the position information, determines a size of a second angle of view of the image data in a manner in which the second angle of view includes an optical axis of the optical system and is smaller than the first angle of view;

an angle of view changing portion which selects and outputs the image data corresponding to the second angle of view when the signal input from the object detection portion indicates that the object is included, and which selects and outputs the image data corresponding to the first angle of view when the signal input from the object detection portion does not indicate that the object is included;

a distortion correction portion which corrects a distortion in the image data output from the angle of view changing portion; and

an image zoom-in/out portion which zooms in/out the image data output from the distortion correction portion in accordance with a desired image size.

8. The imaging apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the angle of view determination portion adjusts a center of the second angle of view in order to correspond with the optical axis of the optical system.