IMAGE SYNTHESIZING APPARATUS, IMAGE SYNTHESIZING METHOD, AND IMAGE SYNTHESIZING PROGRAM

• US 20120230606A1
• Filed: 03/05/2012
• Published: 09/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Sugiyama, Masatoshi, Shiono, Toru, Fujii, Shinichi
• Granted Patent: US 8,682,104 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/284
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0007 Image acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20221 Image fusion; Image merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30201 Face
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/3876 Recombination of partial images to recreate the original image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/134 based on three different wavelength filter elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/704 Pixels specially adapted for focusing, e.g. phase difference pixel sets
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/2226 Determination of depth image, e.g. for foreground/background separation determining depth by image analysis in general G06T7/50; segmentation by image analysis in general G06T7/10

Abstract

An image synthesizing apparatus includes a subject region determination unit that determines a region of a nearby subject for each of taken images based on subject distance information of a plurality of points generated by distance measurement made during imaging and an image synthesizing unit that creates a synthetic image by cutting out an image from each of the taken images based on a position of the region of the nearby subject and combining the cut images of the taken images.

Claims

1. An image synthesizing apparatus comprising:

a subject region determination unit that determines a region of a nearby subject for each of taken images based on subject distance information of a plurality of points generated by distance measurement made during imaging; and

an image synthesizing unit that creates a synthetic image by cutting out an image from each of the taken images based on a position of the region of the nearby subject and combining the cut image for each of the taken images.

2. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image synthesizing unit cuts out an image without dividing the region of the nearby subject.

3. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image synthesizing unit cuts out an image at the center for a region other than the region of the nearby subject.

4. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image synthesizing unit determines whether the region of the nearby subject is redundantly present in taken images based on the subject distance information and, when the region of the nearby subject is redundantly present, the image synthesizing unit cuts out the image in the region of the nearby subject from a taken image in which the region of the nearby subject is closest to the center of the taken image, the taken image being one of the taken images.

5. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the image synthesizing unit cuts out the image in the region of the nearby subject from a taken image in which the region of the nearby subject is closest to the center of the taken image in a direction of combination.

6. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the image synthesizing unit determines whether the region of the nearby subject is redundantly present in taken images based on the correlation of subject distance information corresponding to the determined region of the nearby subject.

7. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an enlargement/reduction unit that estimates a duplicate region in taken images based on the subject distance information and enlarges or reduces the taken images according to difference in the subject distance information in the estimated duplicate region;

wherein the image synthesizing unit creates the synthetic image using the taken images enlarged or reduced according to the difference in the subject distance information.

8. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the enlargement/reduction unit estimates the duplicate region in taken images based on the correlation of the subject distance information.

9. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a motion vector detecting unit that detects a motion vector between two consecutive taken images based on the subject distance information;

wherein the image synthesizing unit creates the synthetic image based on the detected motion vector.

10. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the motion vector detecting unit performs first detection for a motion vector between taken images based on the subject distance information, sets a search range based on the result of the first detection, and performs second detection for the motion vector using image data in the search range.

11. The image synthesizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the subject region determination unit makes comparison between a preset threshold and the subject distance information and determines the region of the nearby subject based on the result of the comparison.

12. An image synthesizing method comprising:

determining a region of a nearby subject for each of taken images based on subject distance information of a plurality of points generated by distance measurement made during imaging;

cutting out an image from each of the taken images based on a position of the region of the nearby subject; and

combining the cut image for each of the taken images to create a synthetic image.

13. A program letting a computer execute a process for image synthesis creating a synthetic image with a wide angle of view from a plurality of taken images, the process comprising:

determining a region of a nearby subject for each of taken images based on subject distance information of a plurality of points generated by distance measurement made during imaging;

cutting out an image from each of the taken images based on a position of the region of the nearby subject; and

combining the cut image for each of the taken images to create a synthetic image.