Increased resolution digital capture device

• US 6,686,956 B1
• Filed: 08/31/1999
• Issued: 02/03/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Lenovo Singapore Pte Limited (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Prakash, Ravinder, Hakenewerth, Paul
• Primary Examiner(s): Garber, Wendy R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): HANNETT, JAMES M
• Application Number:
  US09/387,540
• Time in Patent Office: 1,617 Days
• Field of Search: 348/218.1, 348/208.99, 348/373
• US Class Current: 348/218.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/55 Optical parts specially adapted for electronic image sensors; Mounting thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/48 Increasing resolution by shifting the sensor relative to the scene
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/142 Constructional details of the terminal equipment, e.g. arrangements of the camera and the display

Abstract

A workstation having low resolution and high resolution image capture apparatus such as is useful for tele-conferencing. Optical wedge apparatus is placed between an object and a focusing lens according to the invention to create multiple overlapping low resolution images of a whole object. Programmed or hardwired logic is then used to construction a high resolution image of the object by interleaving the picture elements of the low resolution images.

Claims

1. Image capture apparatus comprising:

an image capture array having a plurality of sensors, each sensor capturing a picture element of an image;

a lens for focusing an image of an object onto the image capture array;

an optical wedge assembly located between the object and the lens for displacing the image of the object on the image capture array to a first position on the array;

first memory area for holding first picture elements of the image captured from the image in the first position;

an actuator connected to the optical wedge assembly and moving the optical wedge assembly for displacing the image of the object on the image capture array to a second and overlapping position at a distance from the first position of an integer multiple minus a fraction of the distance between adjacent sensors in the array;

second memory area for holding second picture elements of the image captured from the image in the second position;

logic for interleaving the stored picture elements of the first memory with those of the second memory to provide a composite image at a resolution greater than the resolution of the first picture elements and the resolution of the second picture elements;

wherein the optical wedge assembly is a four facet shuttered optical wedge assembly and wherein the actuator moves the optical wedge assembly by opening one shutter at a time.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a workstation having a stand for holding the apparatus in a first position in which low resolution images are adequate and for holding the apparatus in a second position in which high resolution images are required.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein the workstation is a tele-conferencing station and the second position is a position for capturing images of documents.