Illuminating device

• US 8,783,902 B2
• Filed: 07/30/2012
• Issued: 07/22/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2011
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Takakura, Junya, Imai, Yoshie, Kaneko, Toshimitsu
• Primary Examiner(s): Tan, Vibol
• Application Number:
  US13/561,397
• Publication Number:
  US 20130039053A1
• Time in Patent Office: 722 Days
• Field of Search: 362/231, 362/230, 362235-239, 362/249, 362/227, 362/295, 362/545, 362/555, 362/601, 362/800, 315/246, 315/149, 315/397, 315/294, 315/308
• US Class Current: 362/231
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 5/0618 Psychological treatment
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 45/10 Controlling the intensity of the light

Abstract

In an embodiment, an illuminating device includes a light source, a light source control unit, an estimation unit, a first calculating unit, and a second calculating unit. The light source includes light emitters, each having a different spectral distribution. The light source control unit determines an emission intensity of each of the light emitters. The estimation unit estimates a spectral reflectivity of an object. The first calculating unit calculates a first evaluation value, indicating an adequacy of a color of the object visually perceived, based on the spectral distributions and the spectral reflectivity. The second calculating unit calculates a second evaluation value, indicating how much an influence is given by the illuminating light to factors other than a visual sense. The light source control unit determines the emission intensities by which the first evaluation value and the second evaluation value satisfy a restraint condition determined beforehand.

Claims

1. An illuminating device comprising:

a light source configured to include plural light emitters, each having a different spectral distribution;

a light source control unit configured to determine an emission intensity of each of the light emitters, and control the light emitters to have the emission intensities;

an estimation unit configured to estimate a spectral reflectivity of an object to which illuminating light is irradiated from the light source;

a first calculating unit configured to calculate a first evaluation value, indicating an adequacy of a color of the object visually perceived, based on the spectral distributions and the spectral reflectivity; and

a second calculating unit configured to calculate a second evaluation value, indicating how much an influence is given by the illuminating light to factors other than a visual sense, based on the spectral distributions,

wherein the light source control unit determines the emission intensities by which the first evaluation value and the second evaluation value satisfy a restraint condition determined beforehand.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the first evaluation value is a magnitude in a difference in appearances among plural regions included in the object.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein the restraint condition is a condition in which the second evaluation value decreases with the first evaluation value being kept to be not less than a predetermined fixed value, or a condition in which the second evaluation value increases with the first evaluation value being kept to be not less than the fixed value.

4. The device according to claim 1, wherein the second evaluation value is an integral of a product of the spectral distributions and a action spectrum for melatonin suppression, or a value of a melatonin secretory inhibition prediction expression based on the responses of a cone, a rod, and a melanopsin-containing ganglion cell.

5. The device according to claim 1, wherein the estimation unit includes:

an imaging unit configured to capture an image of the object; and

an image processing unit configured to estimate the spectral reflectivity based on the image and the spectral distributions.

6. The device according to claim 5, wherein the imaging unit captures an image of the object through a variable filter of which spectral transmittance is changeable, and

the image processing unit estimates the spectral reflectivity based on the plural images, which are captured through the variable filter that is changed to the different spectral transmittances, and the spectral distributions.

7. The device according to claim 5, wherein the image processing unit estimates the spectral reflectivity based on the plural images captured under different spectral distributions of the light sources.

8. The device according to claim 1, wherein the estimation unit includes

an input processing unit configured to accept an input value according to the spectral reflectivity, and estimate the spectral reflectivity according to the input value.