DIGITAL CAMERA WITH NON-UNIFORM IMAGE RESOLUTION
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A digital camera comprising:
- at least one sensor adapted to provide a digital representation of a portion of a field of view;
an optical system causing a plurality of locations within the field of view to become incident on the at least one sensor;
a lookup table, operative to store a plurality of sets of values, each set related to a rectangular region of interest within the field of view, the stored values including values for scanning velocity and time between signal extraction, bias and gain factors, and pixel dilution parameters;
a timing generator and controller, operative to cause the plurality of locations within the field of view to become incident on the at least one sensor at a given velocity and to command video signal extraction from the at least one sensor at a given time, the values for scanning velocity and time between signal extraction being obtained from the lookup table;
a pixel correction module, operative to add a bias factor to any pixel within the digital representation of the portion of a field of view and to further multiply the pixel by a gain factor, the values for bias and gain factors being obtained from the look-up table;
one or more dilutor modules, each operative to select or combine pixels within the digital representation of the portion of a field of view to form a diluted digital image representation, the parameters for pixel dilution being obtained from the from the look-up table.
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Abstract
A digital camera includes a sensor adapted to provide a digital representation of a portion of a field of view and an optical system that causes a plurality of locations within the field of view to become incident on the sensor. A pixel correction module adds a bias value to any pixel within the digital representation of a portion of a field of view and multiplies it by a gain factor. A region-of-interest lookup table stores sets of values, each set related to a rectangular region of interest within the field of view. The stored values include bias and gain factors.
66 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A digital camera comprising:
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at least one sensor adapted to provide a digital representation of a portion of a field of view;
an optical system causing a plurality of locations within the field of view to become incident on the at least one sensor;
a lookup table, operative to store a plurality of sets of values, each set related to a rectangular region of interest within the field of view, the stored values including values for scanning velocity and time between signal extraction, bias and gain factors, and pixel dilution parameters;
a timing generator and controller, operative to cause the plurality of locations within the field of view to become incident on the at least one sensor at a given velocity and to command video signal extraction from the at least one sensor at a given time, the values for scanning velocity and time between signal extraction being obtained from the lookup table;
a pixel correction module, operative to add a bias factor to any pixel within the digital representation of the portion of a field of view and to further multiply the pixel by a gain factor, the values for bias and gain factors being obtained from the look-up table;
one or more dilutor modules, each operative to select or combine pixels within the digital representation of the portion of a field of view to form a diluted digital image representation, the parameters for pixel dilution being obtained from the from the look-up table. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A digital camera comprising:
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a linear array of electro-optical sensor cells;
an opto-mechanical scanner, operative to scan an optical image of the scene across the array;
one or more amplifiers, each receptive to a corresponding signal extracted from the array;
one or more analog-to-digital converters, each receptive to signals from corresponding one or more of the amplifiers and outputting corresponding pixels;
a digital region-of-interest look-up table (ROI LUT), operative to store a plurality of sets of values, each set related to a rectangular region of interest within the image, the stored values including scan parameters, time between signal extractions (TBSE), bias and gain factors, and pixel dilution parameters;
one or more dilutor modules, each operative to select or combine any given ones of the pixels according to corresponding dilution parameters obtained from the ROI LUT, to form a diluted digital image representation;
a timing generator and controller (TGC), operative to effect scanning in a given velocity and to command video signal extraction from the sensor array at given times, all given values being obtained from the ROI LUT for the current scan position a pixel correction module, operative to add a bias value to any pixel and to multiply it by a gain factor, the bias value and the gain factor being obtained from data in the ROI LUT related to a region of interest that includes a point corresponding to that pixel.
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9. A method of acquiring a digital image, the method comprising the steps of:
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providing a linear array of a plurality of electro-optical sensor cells, disposed along a first coordinate axis;
scanning an optical image of the scene across the array along a second coordinate axis, orthogonal to the first;
storing a plurality of sets of values, each set related to a corresponding rectangular region within the image, the stored values including digital gain, digital bias, scan velocity, time between signal extractions and pixel dilution parameters;
extracting electrical signals from the sensors array, the time of each extraction being determined by the corresponding time between signal extractions value;
amplifying the signals and converting them to digital representations, structured as pixels;
adding to each pixel a given bias and multiplying it by a given gain, the gain and the bias being determined by the corresponding stored gain and bias values;
diluting pixels according to stored dilution parameters, to form a diluted digital image representation. - View Dependent Claims (10)
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11. A digital camera comprising:
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at least one sensor adapted to provide a digital representation of a portion of a field of view;
an optical system causing a plurality of locations within the field of view to become incident on the at least one sensor;
a pixel correction module, operative to add a bias value to any pixel within the digital representation of a portion of a field of view and to multiply it by a gain factor. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method of acquiring a digital image, the method comprising the steps of:
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providing a linear array of a plurality of electro-optical sensor cells;
scanning an optical image of the scene across the array, causing the array to provide a digital representation for each of the electro-optical sensor cells;
storing a plurality of sets of values, each set related to a corresponding rectangular region within the image, the stored values including digital gain, digital bias, scan velocity, time between signal extractions and pixel dilution parameters;
adding to each digital representation a given bias and multiplying it by a given gain, the gain and the bias being determined by the corresponding stored gain and bias values. - View Dependent Claims (18)
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Specification