Digital photographing apparatus and method using face recognition function

• US 20090059061A1
• Filed: 08/06/2008
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Techwin Corporation (Hanwha Vision Company Limited)
• Inventors: Yu, Hyun-sik, Son, Sang-ryoon, Park, Byeong-chan
• Granted Patent: US 8,786,760 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/347
• CPC Class Codes: G03B 13/36 Autofocus systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/161 Detection; Localisation; Normalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/61 based on recognised objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/611 where the recognised objects include parts of the human body
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/635 Region indicators; Field of view indicators
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/675 comprising setting of focusing regions

Abstract

A digital photographing apparatus and method using a face recognition function for obtaining an image in which a plurality of faces are focused by setting AF areas in the plurality of recognized faces and photographing the faces in a bracket mode based on the set AF areas. The digital photographing apparatus includes: a face recognition unit detecting face information from a real image; an AF region setting unit setting a plurality of AF areas based on the detected face information; and a control unit operating so that an image is captured by adjusting focuses of the set plurality of AF areas.

Claims

1. A digital photographing apparatus comprising:

a face recognition unit detecting face information in an image, the face information corresponding to a plurality of faces in the image;

an autofocus area setting unit setting a plurality of focus areas based on the detected face information; and

a control unit adjusting the focus of each focus area.

2. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the autofocus area setting unit sets the same number of focus areas as the number of faces in the image.

3. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a range finding unit measuring the distance between each face and the digital photographing apparatus, wherein

focus areas including faces that are at similar distances from the digital photographing apparatus are grouped together.

4. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 1 wherein the image is a live image.

5. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 1 wherein the image is a still image.

6. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 4, further comprising:

a range finding unit measuring the distance between each face and the digital photographing apparatus.

7. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 6, wherein

the control unit adjusts the focus of each focus area based on the distance measured by the range finding unit.

8. A digital photographing apparatus comprising:

a face recognition unit detecting face information in an image, the face information corresponding to a plurality of faces in the image;

an autofocus area setting unit setting a plurality of focus areas based on the face information and assigning at least two focus areas to a focus area group; and

a control unit adjusting the focus of the focus area group.

9. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 8, wherein each face has eyebrows and focus areas including faces with similar distances between the eyebrows are grouped together.

10. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 9, further comprising:

a range finding unit measuring the distance between exactly one face in the focus area group and the digital photographing apparatus.

11. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 8, further comprising:

a range finding unit measuring the distance between a face in the focus area group and the digital photographing apparatus, wherein

the control unit adjusts the focus of the focus area group based on the distance measured by the range finding unit.

12. The digital photographing apparatus of claim 8, wherein focus areas including faces that are at similar distances from the digital photographing apparatus are assigned to the same focus area group.

13. A method of operating a digital photographing apparatus comprising:

(a) detecting face information corresponding to a plurality of faces in an image;

(b) setting a plurality of focus areas based on the detected face information; and

(c) adjusting the focus of each focus area.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein each face has eyebrows and focus areas including faces that have similar distances between the eyebrows are grouped together.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein focus areas including faces that are at similar distances from the digital photographing apparatus are grouped together.

16. The method of claim 13 wherein each focus area includes exactly one face.

17. A method of operating a digital photographing apparatus comprising:

(a) detecting face information in a live image, the face information corresponding to a plurality of human faces;

(b) setting a plurality of focus areas based on the face information and assigning each focus area to a focus area group;

(c) adjusting the focus of each focus area group.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein each face has eyebrows and focus areas including faces with similar distances between the eyebrows are assigned to the same focus area group.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the focus of each focus area group is adjusted based on the distance between a face in one of the focus areas in the focus area group and the digital photographing apparatus.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

(d) capturing a still image corresponding to each of the focus area groups.