Continuous burst mode digital camera
First Claim
1. A digital camera, comprising:
- image capture means for capturing a sequence of at least twenty images and for outputting a stream of sensor data, wherein each image is output by the image capture means as a set of at least five million sensor data values, wherein the image capture means outputs the sensor data values of the stream of sensor data at a sustained average rate of at least three of the sets per second;
nonvolatile storage; and
pipeline processing means for receiving the stream of sensor data at the sustained average rate of at least three of the sets per second and for performing color interpolation, gamma correction, color space conversion, zooming, and compression on the sensor data values of the stream of sensor data at the sustained average rate of at least three of the sets per second, generating processed sensor data values of a stream of processed sensor data and thereby outputting a stream of at least twenty files of processed sensor data values of the stream of processed sensor data, wherein each of the files corresponds with a respective one of the at least twenty images in the sequence captured by the image capture means, wherein the pipeline processing means performs zooming on some of the sensor data values of the set of at least five million sensor data values before color space conversion has been performed on all of the sensor data values of the set of at least five million sensor data values, and wherein the pipeline processing means is also for storing the stream of files in the nonvolatile storage at a sustained average rate of at least three files per second.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A camera has a continuous full-resolution burst mode wherein a sequence of full-resolution images is captured, is image processed by a pipeline of dedicated hardware image processing engines, is zoomed by a zoom engine, is compressed by a compression engine, and is stored into nonvolatile storage as a sequence of discrete files. The capturing of images and the storing of files continues at a rate of at least three frames per second until the user indicates burst mode operation is to stop or until nonvolatile storage becomes filled. Although the camera has a buffer memory into which raw sensor data is placed before image processing, the number of images that can be captured in a single burst is not limited by the size of the buffer memory. The cost of a consumer market camera having continuous burst mode capability is therefore reduced by reducing the required amount of buffer memory.
153 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A digital camera, comprising:
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image capture means for capturing a sequence of at least twenty images and for outputting a stream of sensor data, wherein each image is output by the image capture means as a set of at least five million sensor data values, wherein the image capture means outputs the sensor data values of the stream of sensor data at a sustained average rate of at least three of the sets per second; nonvolatile storage; and pipeline processing means for receiving the stream of sensor data at the sustained average rate of at least three of the sets per second and for performing color interpolation, gamma correction, color space conversion, zooming, and compression on the sensor data values of the stream of sensor data at the sustained average rate of at least three of the sets per second, generating processed sensor data values of a stream of processed sensor data and thereby outputting a stream of at least twenty files of processed sensor data values of the stream of processed sensor data, wherein each of the files corresponds with a respective one of the at least twenty images in the sequence captured by the image capture means, wherein the pipeline processing means performs zooming on some of the sensor data values of the set of at least five million sensor data values before color space conversion has been performed on all of the sensor data values of the set of at least five million sensor data values, and wherein the pipeline processing means is also for storing the stream of files in the nonvolatile storage at a sustained average rate of at least three files per second. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 13)
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4. A method comprising:
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(a) capturing a sequence of at least twenty images in an image sensor at a capture and readout frame rate, wherein the image sensor outputs a frame of sensor data of at least five million sensor data values for each image in the sequence, and wherein the image sensor has a maximum sustained full-resolution image frame capture and readout rate (MSFRIFCRR) of at least three frames per second, wherein the capture and readout frame rate is at least the MSFRIFCRR rate; (b) using a digital imaging pipeline to perform image processing on each frame of sensor data at a rate at least equal to the MSFRIFCRR and outputting a frame of image processed pixel data corresponding to each frame of sensor data received, wherein the image processing includes color space conversion and zooming, and wherein the digital imaging pipeline zooms some data from each frame of sensor data before performing color space conversion on all of the data of each frame of sensor data; (c) receiving each frame of image processed pixel data into a JPEG compression mechanism, the JPEG compression mechanism performing JPEG compression at a rate at least equal to the MSFRIFCRR rate and outputting a frame of compressed image data for each frame of image processed pixel data received, the JPEG compression mechanism outputting a sequence of at least twenty frames of compressed image data wherein there is one frame of JPEG compressed image data for each of said at least twenty images captured by the image sensor; and (d) storing the sequence of at least twenty frames of JPEG compressed image data into nonvolatile storage at a rate at least equal to the MSFRIFCRR rate, wherein each frame of JPEG compressed image is stored in nonvolatile storage as a discrete file. - View Dependent Claims (5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A digital camera,
comprising: -
an image sensor having at least five million sensors, wherein the image sensor captures and outputs a sequence of at least twenty full-resolution frames of image data at a capture and readout rate of at least three frames per second;
a random access memory (RAM) buffer memory;
a pipeline of image processing engines that zooms some data of a frame of image data before performing color space conversion on all of the data of the frame of image data;a compression engine; and a nonvolatile storage device, wherein each frame of the sequence of full-resolution frames of image data passes into the RAM buffer, and passes from the RAM buffer, through the pipeline of image processing engines at an average rate of at least three frames per second, through the compression engine at an average rate of at least three frames per second, and is stored as a discrete file into the nonvolatile storage device, and wherein the discrete files associated with said at least twenty images are stored into the nonvolatile storage device at an average frame storage of at least three frames per second. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 14, 15)
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16. A digital camera having a continuous full-resolution burst capture mode, the digital camera comprising:
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an image sensor having at least five million sensors; a pipeline of image processing engines; a zoom engine; a compression engine; and a nonvolatile storage device, wherein in the continuous full-resolution burst capture mode;
a sequence of at least twenty full-resolution images is captured by the image sensor, wherein each of the full-resolution images is image processed by the pipeline of image processing engines, is zoomed by the zoom engine, is compressed by the compression engine, and is stored into the nonvolatile storage device as a discrete file, wherein the zoom engine zooms some data of an image before the pipeline of image processing engines performs image processing on all of the data of the image, wherein the sequence of at least twenty full-resolution images is captured by the image sensor at a sustained frame rate of at least three frames per second, is image processed by the pipeline of image processing engines at the sustained frame rate of at least three frames per second, is zoomed by the zoom engine at the sustained frame rate of at least three frames per second, is compressed by the compression engine at the sustained frame rate of at least three frames per second, and wherein the discrete files are written into nonvolatile memory at the sustained rate of at least three files per second. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification