ADAPTIVE HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE CAMERA

• US 20120287242A1
• Filed: 05/12/2011
• Published: 11/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: COHEN, David, FELZENSHTEIN, Shlomo, GILBOA, Guy, YAHAV, Giora, LARRY, Eli
• Granted Patent: US 9,137,463 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/46
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/894 3D imaging with simultaneous measurement of time-of-flight at a 2D array of receiver pixels, e.g. time-of-flight cameras or flash lidar
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/4816 of receivers alone
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/271 wherein the generated image signals comprise depth maps or disparity maps
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/70 Circuitry for compensating brightness variation in the scene
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/46 by combining or binning pixels

Abstract

An embodiment of the invention provides a time of flight 3D camera comprising a photosensor having a plurality of pixels that generate and accumulate photoelectrons responsive to incident light, which photosensor is tiled into a plurality of super pixels, each partitioned into a plurality of pixel groups and a controller that provides a measure of an amount of light incident on a super pixel responsive to quantities of photoelectrons from pixel groups in the super pixel that do not saturate a readout pixel comprised in the photosensor.

Claims

1. A camera comprising:

a photosensor comprising a plurality of pixels that generate and accumulate photoelectrons responsive to incident light, which photosensor is tiled to a plurality of super pixels, each partitioned into a plurality of pixel groups;

optics for imaging light onto the photosensor;

a readout pixel that receives photoelectrons from the pixel groups;

circuitry that provides a measure of how many photoelectrons are contained in the readout pixel; and

a controller that provides a measure of a number of photoelectrons in a super pixel responsive to quantities of photoelectrons from pixel groups in the super pixel that do not saturate the readout pixel.

2. A camera according to claim 1 wherein the pixel groups in a super pixel are non-overlapping.

3. A camera according to claim 1 wherein no two pixel groups in a super pixel comprise a same number of pixels.

4. A camera according to claim 3 wherein the controller determines quantities of photoelectrons for the pixel groups sequentially in increasing order of the number of pixels the pixel groups comprise.

5. A camera according to claim 1 wherein the pixels are arrayed in rows and columns.

6. A camera according to claim 5 wherein the super pixels are arrayed in rows and columns.

7. A camera according to claim 6 wherein the super pixels are QQVGA pixels each comprising sixteen pixels.

8. A camera according to claim 7 wherein the pixel groups comprise respectively one, three and twelve pixels.

9. A camera according to claim 8 wherein the pixels comprised in pixel groups comprising one and three pixels are located in a same column or row of pixels.

10. A camera according to claim 1 controllable to determine distances to features of a scene that the camera images.

11. A camera according to claim 10 wherein the camera is a time of flight 3D camera.