APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR CAPTURING STILL IMAGES AND VIDEO USING CODED LENS IMAGING TECHNIQUES

• US 20130038766A1
• Filed: 10/15/2012
• Published: 02/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rearden, LLC
• Original Assignee: Rearden, LLC
• Inventors: Perlman, Stephen G., Busboom, Axel, Greene, Pamela, Cotter, Timothy S., van der Laan, Roger, Speck, John
• Granted Patent: US 10,148,897 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/294
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/134 based on three different wavelength filter elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/60 Noise processing, e.g. detecting, correcting, reducing or removing noise
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/61 the noise originating only from the lens unit, e.g. flare, shading, vignetting or "cos4"

Abstract

An apparatus for capturing images. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises: a coded lens array including a plurality of lenses arranged in a coded pattern and with opaque material blocking array elements that do not contain lenses; and a light-sensitive semiconductor sensor coupled to the coded lens array and positioned at a specified distance behind the coded lens array, the light-sensitive sensor configured to sense light transmitted through the lenses in the coded lens array.

Claims

1. An apparatus for coding images comprising:

a coded lens array including a plurality of lenses coupled together to form a coded pattern.

2. The apparatus as in claim 1 further comprising:

a light-sensitive semiconductor sensor coupled to the coded lens array and positioned at a specified distance behind the coded lens array, the light-sensitive sensor configured to sense light transmitted through the lenses in the coded lens array.

3. The apparatus as in claim 2 further comprising:

image reconstruction logic to generate image data using the light transmitted through the lenses and sensed by the light-sensitive sensor, the image data representing an image of a subject positioned in front of the coded lens array.

4. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the coded pattern is a Uniformly Redundant Array (URA) pattern.

5. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the coded pattern is a Modified Uniformly Redundant Array (MURA) pattern the pattern of claim 1 is a PBA.

6. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the coded pattern is a random pattern.

7. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein there is opaque material blocking array elements which do not contain lenses.

8. The apparatus as in claim 2 further comprising:

an image sensor readout subsystem communicatively coupled to receive image data from the light sensitive semiconductor sensor and to adjust zero offset and/or gain of pixel values of the image data.

9. The apparatus as in claim 2 further comprising:

a plurality of baffles configured between the coded lens array and the light-sensitive semiconductor sensor to collimate light passing between the coded lens array and the light-sensitive semiconductor sensor.