Pre- and post-shutter signal image capture and sort for digital camera

• US 8,098,297 B2
• Filed: 02/04/2009
• Issued: 01/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Crisan, Adrian, Georgis, Nikolaos, Carpio, Fredrik, Hwang, Paul Jin
• Primary Examiner(s): CUTLER, ALBERT H
• Application Number:
  US12/365,322
• Publication Number:
  US 20100053370A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,077 Days
• Field of Search: 348/333.05, 348/333.11, 348/231.2, 348/231.6
• US Class Current: 348/231.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/005 Input arrangements through a video camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00204 with a digital computer or a digital computer system, e.g. an internet server programmed control between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device H04N1/32561
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/00 Cameras or camera modules comprising electronic image sensors; Control thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/70 Circuitry for compensating brightness variation in the scene
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/2621 Cameras specially adapted for the electronic generation of special effects during image pickup, e.g. digital cameras, camcorders, video cameras having integrated special effects capability
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording

Abstract

A camera system includes an image sensor and a processing apparatus receiving image frames from the sensor before and after receipt of a user picture signal. The processing apparatus discards frames that do not meet a quality criterion such as under-exposed frames. Also, the processing apparatus compresses only a subset of remaining frames, specifically, those that meet a compression amount threshold. The remaining frames are presented to a user, who can select a representative frame as the “picture” that was taken.

Claims

1. Method comprising:

prior to receiving a take picture signal from a camera user input element, capturing first plural digital image frames;

after receiving the take picture signal, capturing second plural digital image frames, the captured first and second plural digital image frames establishing an initial set of frames;

discarding from the initial set of frames at least one frame not satisfying a quality criterion to render a first filtered image set;

for each frame in the first filtered image set, determining whether the frame satisfies a minimum compression threshold;

compressing only first frames in the first filtered image set responsive to a determination that the first frames satisfy the minimum compression threshold;

deleting second frames in the first filtered image set responsive to a determination that the second frames do not satisfy the minimum compression threshold such that only the first frames establish a compressed filtered image set;

subsequent to decompression of the compressed filtered image set to render a second filtered image set, presenting the second filtered image set to a user for selection of one or more images therefrom; and

responsive to a user frame selection, storing at least one frame from the second filtered image set.

2. Method of claim 1, wherein the method is executed in a digital camera device.

3. Method of claim 1, wherein the method is executed in a computer receiving frame information from a digital camera device.