PHOTOGRAPH PREDICTION INCLUDING AUTOMATIC PHOTOGRAPH RECORDING WITH AUTOFOCUS AND METHOD

• US 20110199470A1
• Filed: 02/04/2011
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications USA Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: FOLKERYD, Fredrik, RATTIGAN, Ian, MOLLER, Ted
• Granted Patent: US 9,357,118 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/61
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1686 the I/O peripheral being an integrated camera
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1694 the I/O peripheral being a single or a set of motion sensors for pointer control or gesture input obtained by sensing movements of the portable computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/52 including functional features of a camera constructional features concerning the integration of cameras in portable phones H04M1/0264
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2101/00 Still video cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/611 where the recognised objects include parts of the human body
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/64 Computer-aided capture of images, e.g. transfer from script file into camera, check of taken image quality, advice or proposal for image composition or decision on when to take image

Abstract

When a user removes a camera phone from a pocket or other storage location and raises it in a pre-defined motion in front of his face, the pre-defined motion activates the camera. When the camera phone decelerates/stabilizes in the user'"'"'s hand in the correct orientation to take a picture, autofocus occurs and the camera automatically records images/photographs. When the user presses the shutter release, a camera application opens on the camera phone display to show the current image and that image is recorded. The previous automatically recorded images also may be available for viewing by the user. If after removing the camera from the storage location, the user does something other than pressing the shutter release, the automatically recorded images will be automatically discarded. When a brief photographic opportunity occurs and the user has little time to react, the photographic moment still can be captured.

Claims

1. Electronic equipment for capturing images, comprising

an image capturing device,

a motion sensor configured to sense motion of the image capturing device,

an analyzer configured to determine whether the sensed motion of the image capturing device is a predefined motion, and

a control configured so as upon determining the motion is the predefined motion to cause automatically capturing images or preparing to capture images in response to the analyzer determining the sensed motion being a predefined motion.

2. The electronic equipment of claim 1, said control being configured such that preparing to capture images comprises automatically focusing the image capturing device for capturing an image, and said control being configured to prevent automatically capturing images until after the automatic focusing has been done.

3. The electronic equipment of either one of claim 1 or 2, comprising a stabilization detector configured to determine whether the image capturing device is suitably stable for image capturing and wherein the control is configured to prevent capturing images until after the image capturing device has been detected as suitably stable for image capturing.

4. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-4, comprising memory configured to store captured images in the memory.

5. The electronic equipment of any one of claim 1-4, wherein the control is configured to program the image capturing device whereby detecting motion of the image capturing device as sensed by the motion sensor as a representation of a predefined manner establishes a predefined motion, and further comprising memory configured storing a representation of the predefined motion.

6. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-5, comprising a comparator configured to compare the sensed motion with a representation of the predefined motion.

7. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-6, wherein the analyzer responds to sensing motion that is representative of decisively removing the image capturing device from a prescribed location.

8. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-7, wherein the motion sensor comprises an accelerometer.

9. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-8, wherein the control is configured to cause images from the image capturing device to be record as a sequence of images in response to the analyzer determining the motion is the predefined motion and the image capturing device is suitably focused and stable to record images.

10. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-9, further comprising a shutter release, and wherein the control is configured to respond to the shutter release being operated so as to record an image and to cease the automatic recording of a sequence of images.

11. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-10, wherein the electronic equipment includes a display, and the control is configured to cause the display to display a number of a sequence of automatically recorded images and an image recorded in response to operating of a shutter release of the image capturing device.

12. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-11, wherein the control is configured such that in response to a function of the electronic equipment being selected other than an image capturing function, automatically recorded images are discarded and image capturing function is stopped.

13. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-12, comprising a mobile phone.

22. The electronic equipment of any one of claims 1-13, wherein the predefined motion is a physical motion of the image capturing device from a position or location indicative of being in an idle (or not image capturing) state towards a position indicative of capturing images to initiate image capturing function, to set up the image capturing device or to begin setting up the image capturing device for image capturing, or to commence capturing images.

14. A method for capturing images, comprising sensing motion of an image capturing device,

determining whether the sensed motion of the image capturing is a predefined motion, and

upon determining the motion is the predefined motion automatically capturing images and/or preparing to capture images.

15. The method of claim 14, said preparing to capture images comprising automatically focusing the image capturing device for capturing an image and determining whether the image capturing device is suitably stable for capturing images, and said automatically capturing images comprising commencing automatically capturing images after the automatic focusing has been done and the image capturing device is suitably stable.

16. The method of either one of claim 14 or 15, comprising programming the image capturing device by moving the image capturing device in a decisive manner to establish a predefined motion and storing a representation of the predefined motion.

17. The method of any one of claims 14-16, wherein said determining whether the sensed motion of the image capturing is a predefined motion comprises comparing the sensed motion with a representation of the predefined motion.

18. The method of any one of claims 14-17, wherein upon determining that sensed motion is a predefined motion and completing of focusing and stabilizing of the image capturing device, automatically recording a sequence of images.

19. The method of any one of claims 14-18, further comprising in response to a shutter release of the image capturing device being operated, ceasing the automatic recording of the sequence of images, displaying a current image on a display of the image capturing device and recording the image being sensed by the image capturing device and shown on the display.

20. The method of any one of claims 14-19, wherein the image capturing device is a camera or a mobile phone, and further comprising while images are being automatically captured by the image capturing device, in response to a function of the camera or mobile phone being selected that is other than a shutter release function, ceasing automatically capturing images or preparing to capture images and discarding images that were automatically recorded as a sequence of images immediately preceding such function having been selected.

21. The method of any one of claims 14-20, wherein the predefined motion is a physical motion of the image capturing device from a position or location indicative of being in an idle (or not image capturing) state towards a position indicative of capturing images to initiate image capturing function, to set up the image capturing device or to begin setting up the image capturing device for image capturing, or to commence capturing images.