IMAGING DEVICE

• US 20100265381A1
• Filed: 04/09/2010
• Published: 10/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Ichimura, Isao, Yamamoto, Kenji, Kishima, Koichiro, Hayasaka, Kengo
• Granted Patent: US 8,237,843 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/335
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 27/0025 for optical correction, e.g. distorsion, aberration
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/232 using fly-eye lenses, e.g. arrangements of circular lenses
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/843 Demosaicing, e.g. interpolating colour pixel values
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/134 based on three different wavelength filter elements

Abstract

Disclosed herein is an imaging device, including: an imaging lens having an aperture stop; an imaging element adapted to obtain image data based on received light; and a microlens array provided in the focal plane of the imaging lens between the imaging lens and imaging element, the microlens array including a plurality of microlenses arranged in such a manner that each microlens is associated with a plurality of imaging pixels of the imaging element, wherein the arrangement of the microlenses of the microlens array is corrected from an equidistant arrangement to a non-linear arrangement according to the height of the image from the imaging lens on the imaging element.

Claims

1. An imaging device, comprising:

an imaging lens having an aperture stop;

an imaging element adapted to obtain image data based on received light; and

a microlens array provided in the focal plane of the imaging lens between the imaging lens and imaging element, the microlens array including a plurality of microlenses arranged in such a manner that each microlens is associated with a plurality of imaging pixels of the imaging element, wherein

the arrangement of the microlenses of the microlens array is corrected from an equidistant arrangement to a non-linear arrangement according to the height of the image from the imaging lens on the imaging element.

2. The imaging device of claim 1, wherein

the arrangement of the microlenses is corrected to a non-linear arrangement in the direction in which image height deviation appropriate to the image height cancels out.

3. The imaging device of claim 2, wherein

the rate of increase of a correction amount for a non-linear arrangement of the microlenses gradually diminishes with increase in the image height.

4. The imaging device of claim 1, comprising:

an image processing section adapted to subject the image data obtained from the imaging element to predetermined image processing so as to generate a reconstructed image.

5. The imaging device of claim 4, wherein

the image processing section generates a refocused image based on the image data.

6. The imaging device of claim 4, wherein

the image processing section generates a plurality of arbitrary viewpoint images as the reconstructed image by extracting and synthesizing pixel data from the pixels at the same positions of the image areas that are formed one for each microlens, based on the image data.

7. The imaging device of claim 5, wherein the refocused image is an image set at an arbitrary focal point.