CAMERA SYSTEM WITH MIRROR ARRANGEMENT FOR GENERATING SELF-PORTRAIT PANORAMIC PICTURES

• US 20090167934A1
• Filed: 12/26/2007
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Gupta, Vikram M.
• Granted Patent: US 7,880,807 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/373
• CPC Class Codes: G03B 17/02 Bodies
• CPC Class Codes: G03B 37/04 with cameras or projectors providing touching or overlapping fields of view
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/53 of electronic viewfinders, e.g. rotatable or detachable
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/633 for displaying additional information relating to control or operation of the camera

Abstract

A camera assembly that generates a high-quality self portrait may include a plurality of reflecting surfaces, such as an array of mirrors or a multi-faceted reflecting element. Each reflecting surface may be arranged so as to assist the user align the camera by rotational movement and/or translated movement to achieve a different field of view for the camera assembly for each reflecting surface. In this manner, the user may sequentially use the various reflecting surfaces to capture an image corresponding to each reflecting surface so that each image corresponds to a different portion of a scene. These portions of the scene may have some overlap and may be stitched together to form a panoramic self portrait that includes the user and portions of the scene behind the user.

Claims

1. A camera assembly, comprising:

a sensor that generates digital image data for capturing images, each image representing a portion of a scene that is in a field of view of the camera assembly at the time that the image was captured;

a housing in which the sensor is contained; and

a plurality of reflecting surfaces retained by the housing and arranged with respect to each other such that a user of the camera assembly aligns the camera assembly while observing reflections from each reflecting surface to compose and capture an image corresponding to each reflecting surface so that the captured images, when stitched together to form a panoramic image of the scene, contiguously represents a portion of the scene that includes a representation of the user and is larger than the portion of the scene represented by any one of the captured images.

2. The camera assembly of claim 1, further comprising a controller that stitches the images together to form the panoramic image that includes the representation of the user.

3. The camera assembly of claim 2, wherein each reflecting surface has an identifier and each image is displayed on a display of the camera assembly with an identifier corresponding to the identifier of the reflecting surface that corresponds to the image.

4. The camera assembly of claim 3, wherein the controller is configured to allow the user to replace or approve a user selected one of the images prior to stitching of the images.

5. The camera assembly of claim 1, wherein at least some of the reflecting surfaces have an alignment marking to guide the user in composing the image that corresponds to the reflecting surface.

6. The camera assembly of claim 1, wherein the reflecting surfaces include a first reflecting surface that is in a plane normal to an optical axis of the camera assembly so that an image field of the camera assembly is generally centered on the user when the user centers the reflection from the first reflecting surface on the user.

7. The camera assembly of claim 6, wherein the reflecting surfaces include a second reflecting surface that is at an angle to the first reflecting surface so that at least one of rotation or translation of the camera assembly results in the user seeing at least a part of the user in the reflection from the second reflecting surface and so that the field of view of the camera assembly in the rotated or translated position overlaps with the field of view of the camera assembly corresponding to the centered portion associated with the first reflecting surface.

8. The camera assembly of claim 1, further comprising a display that acts as an electronic viewfinder during composition of each image.

9. The camera assembly of claim 8, wherein the display is on an opposite side of the housing from a side of the housing that retains the reflecting surfaces.

10. The camera assembly of claim 9, further comprising a second camera assembly adjacent the display.

11. The camera assembly of claim 9, further comprising a shutter release button on the side of the housing that retains the reflecting surfaces.

12. The camera assembly of claim 1, further comprising one or more indicators associated with the reflecting surfaces that prompts the user to compose an image with a specified one of the reflecting surfaces.

13. The camera assembly of claim 1, wherein the reflecting surfaces are touch sensitive to function as devices for receiving user input regarding which reflecting surface is being used to compose an image.

14. The camera assembly of claim 1, further comprising call circuitry for establishing a call over a network.