Image pickup device

• US 20080136943A1
• Filed: 12/21/2007
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Inventors: Azuma, Motoo
• Granted Patent: US 7,768,567 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/231.99
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2209/045 using mosaic colour filter
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/635 Region indicators; Field of view indicators
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/843 Demosaicing, e.g. interpolating colour pixel values
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/88 for colour balance, e.g. white-balance circuits or colour temperature control
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/134 based on three different wavelength filter elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/61 the noise originating only from the lens unit, e.g. flare, shading, vignetting or "cos4"
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/611 Correction of chromatic aberration
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/68 applied to defects

Abstract

An image pickup device may include an optical system having a distortion that captures a distortion-containing optical image, a conversion unit that converts the distortion-containing optical image into distortion-containing image data, a storage unit that stores the distortion-containing image data and additional data related to a distortion of the distortion-containing image data, and a distortion correction unit that corrects the distortion of the distortion-containing image data with reference to the additional data.

Claims

1. An image pickup device comprising:

an optical system having a distortion characteristic, the optical system capturing an optical image of an object, the distortion characteristic magnifying a center portion of the optical image and reducing a peripheral portion of the optical image;

an image sensor that converts the optical image into image data;

a frame memory that stores the image data;

a frame memory output control unit that reads a first selected portion of the image data out of the frame memory, the first selected portion being defined by an angle of view, the angle of view being externally defined;

a first filter unit that applies a first filtering process to a second selected portion of the image data to generate first-filtered image data, the second selected portion being included in the first selected portion, the second selected portion having a first range of distortion that is smaller than a first threshold value;

a distortion correction unit that performs a distortion correction of the first-filtered image data to generate distortion-corrected image data; and

a second filter unit that applies a second filtering process to a third portion of the distortion-corrected image data to generate second-filtered image data, the second filtering process being different from the first filtering process, the third selected portion having a second range of distortion that is greater than a second threshold value.

2. The image pickup device according to claim 1, further comprising:

an image data correction unit that comprises at least one of a pixel defect correction unit that corrects a pixel defect of the image data, a white balance correction unit that corrects a white balance of the image data, and a shading correction unit that corrects a shading of the image data, and

wherein the frame memory stores the image data that is outputted from the image data correction unit.

3. The image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein the image sensor has a color filter array of Red (R) color filters, Green (G) color filters, and Blue (B) color filters,

wherein the image pickup device further comprises:

an RGB synchronization unit that generates color image data for Red (R), Green (G), and Blue (B) from the image data, the color image data being generated for each pixel position of the image sensor, and

wherein the first filter unit performs the first filtering process to the color image data.

4. The image pickup device according to claim 3, further comprising:

a luminance chrominance conversion unit that converts the second-filtered image data into luminance chrominance signals representing luminance and chrominance; and

a compression unit that compresses the luminance chrominance signals.

5. The image pickup device according to claim 1, further comprising:

a resize unit that resizes the distortion-corrected image data to generate resized distortion-corrected image data, and

wherein the second filter unit performs the second filtering process to the resized distortion-corrected image data.

6. The image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein the image sensor has a color filter array of Red (R) color filters, Green (G) color filters, and Blue (B) color filters,

wherein the image pickup device further comprises:

a resize unit that resizes the distortion-corrected image data to generate resized distortion-corrected image data; and

an RGB synchronization unit that generates color image data for Red (R), Green (G), and Blue (B) from the resized distortion-corrected image data, the color image data being generated for each pixel position of the image sensor, and

wherein the second filter unit performs the second filtering process to the color image data.

7. The image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein the image sensor has a color filter array of Red (R) color filters, Green (G) color filters, and Blue (B) color filters,

wherein the image pickup device further comprises:

an RGB synchronization unit that generates color image data for Red (R), Green (G), and Blue (B) from the image data, the color image data being generated for each pixel position of the image sensor; and

a luminance chrominance conversion unit that converts the color image data into luminance chrominance signals representing luminance and chrominance, and

wherein the first filter unit performs the first filtering process to the luminance chrominance signals.

8. The image pickup device according to claim 7, further comprising:

a compression unit that compresses the second-filtered image data.

9. The image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein the image sensor has a color filter array of Red (R) color filters, Green (G) color filters, and Blue (B) color filters,

wherein the image pickup device further comprises:

a resize unit that resizes the distortion-corrected image data to generate resized distortion-corrected image data;

an RGB synchronization unit that generates color image data for Red (R), Green (G), and Blue (B) from the image data, the color image data being generated for each pixel position of the resized distortion-corrected image data; and

a luminance chrominance conversion unit that converts the color image data into luminance chrominance signals representing luminance and chrominance, and

wherein the second filter unit performs the second filtering process to the luminance chrominance signals.