Imaging apparatus with higher and lower resolution converters and a compression unit to compress decreased resolution image data

• US 7,349,012 B2
• Filed: 08/26/2003
• Issued: 03/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Ironworks Patents LLC
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Mizutani, Yoichi, Matsumoto, Hideki, Nakajima, Ken, Yamamoto, Toshihisa, Takezawa, Masayuki
• Primary Examiner(s): HO, TUAN V
• Application Number:
  US10/650,021
• Publication Number:
  US 20050088561A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,673 Days
• Field of Search: 348/222.1, 348/333.01, 348/231.99
• US Class Current: 348/222.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/667 Camera operation mode switching, e.g. between still and video, sport and normal or high- and low-resolution modes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/815 for controlling the resolution by using a single image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/951 by using two or more images to influence resolution, frame rate or aspect ratio
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/772 the recording apparatus and the television camera being placed in the same enclosure

Abstract

In an imaging apparatus, an image is to be displayed in real-time on a finder. In the finder mode, a CCD interface 21a thins out horizontal components of image data supplied from an image generating unit 10 to one-third and also effects gamma correction etc to send the resulting image data to a camera DSP 21c. The camera DSP 21c effects data conversion and resolution conversion on the image data resulting from the thinning to convert the data into Y, Cb and Cr image data which is routed to a memory controller 22. The memory controller 22 writes the image data in the image memory 32 and reads out the data from the memory controller 22 to route the read-out data over an image data bus 33 to an NTSC/PAL encoder 23. The NTSC/PAL encoder 23 converts the image data in resolution and further converts the image data into data of the NTSC or PAL system to route the resulting data to a finder.

Claims

1. Imaging apparatus having an imaging unit for generating image data in response to image light received from an object and an output unit for outputting image data to a display, the imaging apparatus comprising:

a first resolution converter for decreasing a resolution of image data generated by the imaging unit,

a second resolution converter for increasing a resolution of image data that is to be outputted to the display via the output unit, and

a compression unit for compressing image data with a resolution that is decreased by the first resolution converter.

2. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a display unit for displaying an image based on the image data from the output unit, and

an image data recording unit for writing on a recording medium the image data compressed by the compression unit.

3. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an image data output unit for outputting to outside the image data compressed by the compression unit.

4. Imaging apparatus having an imaging unit for generating image data in response to image light received from an object and an output unit for outputting image data to a display, the imaging apparatus comprising:

a first resolution converter for decreasing a resolution of image data generated by the imaging unit, and

a second resolution converter for increasing a resolution of image data that is to be outputted to the display via the output unit, wherein

the second resolution converter performs a resolution conversion to increase the resolution of the image data if the resolution of that image data before resolution conversion thereof is less than a resolution that matches a resolution standard of the display.

5. The imaging apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising:

a display unit for displaying an image based on the image data from the output unit.