IMAGE PROCESSING SYSTEM

• US 20100277570A1
• Filed: 07/12/2010
• Published: 11/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Inventors: Konno, Osamu, Ajito, Takeyuki, Komiya, Yasuhiro, Nakamura, Tomoyuki, Wada, Toru
• Granted Patent: US 7,889,919 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/56 provided with illuminating means
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/63 by using electronic viewfinders
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/667 Camera operation mode switching, e.g. between still and video, sport and normal or high- and low-resolution modes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/84 for processing colour signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/11 Arrangement of colour filter arrays [CFA]; Filter mosaics
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/44 by partially reading an SSIS array

Abstract

An image processing system includes a photographing apparatus and a processing apparatus. The photographing apparatus includes LEDs for emitting light with characteristics of spectroscopic distributions varied in a visible light area, an image pick-up device unit which picks-up a subject image that is illuminated by the LEDs and is formed by an image pick-up optical system and which outputs an image signal, and a control unit. The control unit sequentially lights-on the LEDs upon an instruction for photographing a subject spectroscopic image being input from an operating switch, picks-up the image, and thus controls the operation for capturing subject spectroscopic images. The processing apparatus includes a calculating device which performs a desired image calculation based on the image signal.

Claims

1. A photographing apparatus comprising:

a plurality of light-emitting devices for illuminating a subject and emitting illumination light having characteristics of spectroscopic distributions varied in at least a visible light range;

an image pick-up optical system which forms a subject image of a subject illuminated by the light-emitting device;

an image pick-up device unit which picks-up the subject image formed by the image pick-up optical system and outputs an image signal; and

a control unit which controls lighting-on of the plurality of light-emitting devices and image picking-up by the image pick-up device unit;

wherein the photographing apparatus is configured to switch between a spectroscopic image capturing mode for capturing multi-band spectroscopic still images of the subject and a moving image capturing mode for capturing a moving image;

wherein in the spectroscopic image capturing mode, the control unit controls the plurality of light emitting devices to sequentially light-on according to the characteristics of spectroscopic distributions, and controls the image pick-up device unit to perform the image picking-up a plurality of times synchronously with the lighting-on of the light emitting devices to capture multi-band sequential spectroscopic images of the subject; and

wherein in the moving image capturing mode, the control unit one of;

(i) controls light emitting devices of a single specific primary color or a plurality of specific primary colors selected from the plurality of light emitting devices to light-on sequentially or simultaneously, and (ii) controls a plurality of groups of the light-emitting devices to sequentially light-on group by group, the groups including light-emitting devices having different characteristics of spectroscopic distributions selected from the plurality of light-emitting devices, and the control unit controls the image pick-up device unit to capture a moving image.

2. The photographing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit performs the control by using groups necessary for application in the plurality of groups of the light-emitting devices which respectively comprise the plurality of the light-emitting devices.

3. The photographing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the moving image capturing mode is a mode for capturing a three-primary-color moving image by the image pick-up device unit by sequentially lighting-on groups of the light-emitting devices for every image pick-up frame in the group of the light-emitting devices comprising a group of the light-emitting devices of blue in the visible light area, a group of the light-emitting devices of red in the visible light area, and a group of the light-emitting devices of green in the visible light area, from among the plurality of light-emitting devices.

4. The photographing apparatus of claim 2, further comprising a photographing operating unit which inputs at least an instruction for starting a spectroscopic image photographing operation, wherein the control unit controls the operation for capturing the plurality of subject spectroscopic images in accordance with the input of the instruction for starting the spectroscopic image photographing operation from the photographing operating unit.

5. The photographing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the photographing operating unit comprises a pressing button switch, and the control unit controls the operation for changing the group upon pressing of the button switch.

6. The photographing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the control unit controls light-on timings of the devices of the changed group, upon pressing of the button switch.

7. The photographing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the photographing operating unit comprises a pressing button switch, and the control unit controls the switching of the spectroscopic image capturing mode and the moving image capturing mode.

8. The photographing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image pick-up device unit comprises a color image pick-up device having a color filter array.

9. The photographing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein at least one of the plurality of light-emitting devices has characteristics of spectroscopic distributions between different bands of the color filter array.

10. The photographing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a display unit for displaying an image based on the image signal outputted from the image pick-up device unit.

11. The photographing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an abutting portion which is abutted to the subject at one end thereof.

12. The photographing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the abutting portion comprises a flexible material with a cylindrical shape.

13. The photographing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the abutting portion comprises a material which rejects or reduces influence from ambient light.

14. The photographing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the abutting portion is detachably coupled to a casing of the photographing apparatus.

15. An image processing system comprising:

a photographing apparatus according to claim 1; and

a processing apparatus including a calculating unit which performs a desired image calculation based on the image signal.

16. The image processing system according to claim 15, wherein the calculating unit comprises a color-reproduction calculating unit for calculating image data for displaying an image of the subject which is color-reproduced based on the spectroscopic still images photographed by the photographing apparatus.

17. The image processing system according to claim 16, wherein the calculating unit further comprises an input profile calculating unit for generating an input profile using at least one of the characteristics of spectroscopic distributions of the light-emitting devices, and characteristics data of the image pick-up optical system and the image pick-up device unit, and

wherein the color-reproducing calculating unit comprises an XYZ estimation calculating unit for generating image data of XYZ tristimulus values from the spectroscopic still images using the input profile and a color matching function.

18. The image processing system according to claim 15, wherein the calculating unit further comprises an image determination calculating unit which determines or analyzes the subject based on the spectroscopic still images and outputs a result of the determining or analyzing.