In 1608, Dutch eyeglass maker Hans Lipperhey filed the first patent for a working telescope. The patent was denied.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8189079 | Imaging apparatus and method In recent years, the performance of CMOS and CCD image sensors has dramatically improved, and to utilize the improved performance of these sensors, processing circuitry is provided here. This processing circuitry employs a adjustable gain that varies depending on th... | 05/29/2012 |
| 8154635 | Image sensor and digital gain compensation method thereof An image sensor and digital gain compensation thereof. The image sensor includes a variable amplification device for amplifying an inputted analog image signal as a variable first gain value, an analog-to-digital conversion unit for converting the amplified analog i... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8115837 | Image sensing device using a photoelectric converter and a control method therefor An image sensing apparatus has a plurality of pixels arranged two dimensionally, each pixel containing a photoelectric converter that outputs a photoelectrically converted signal in response to a quantity of received light, an output unit containing a clamping circu... | 02/14/2012 |
| 8023015 | System, method and medium correcting brightness of an image A system, method and medium correcting brightness of an image, and more particularly, a system, method and medium correcting brightness of an acquired image to achieve a target brightness. The system includes an initial brightness sensing unit to sense an initial br... | 09/20/2011 |
| 7936387 | Phase adjustment device, phase adjustment method and digital camera An intended-usage judger judges an intended usage of an inputted digital imaging signal. A selector selects one or a plurality of signals to be inspected from a group of signals constituting the digital imaging signal based on a result of the judgment by the intende... | 05/03/2011 |
| RE41454 | Camera having an adaptive gain control A system for generating a digital output signal representing a captured image includes a sensor for capturing the image and generating a sensor output signal. A gain control amplifier is coupled to the sensor and receives the sensor output signal. The gain control a... | 07/27/2010 |
| 7733395 | Variable-gain amplifier circuit and method of changing gain amplifier path A variable-gain amplifier circuit and a method of changing gain amplifier paths are provided for receiving and amplifying an image sensing signal. The variable-gain amplifier circuit includes variable path and gain amplifier circuits. According to the amplification ... | 06/08/2010 |
| 7522202 | Image sensor and digital gain compensation method thereof An image sensor and digital gain compensation method thereof. The image sensor comprises a variable amplification device for amplifying an inputted analog image signal as a variable first gain value, an analog-to-digital conversion unit for converting the amplified ... | 04/21/2009 |
| RE40654 | Camera having adaptive gain control A system for generating a digital output signal representing a captured image includes a sensor for capturing the image and generating a sensor output signal. A gain control amplifier is coupled to the sensor and receives the sensor output signal. The gain control a... | 03/10/2009 |
| 7443455 | Automatic gain control based on multiple input references in a video decoder A video decoder (10) for receiving an input video signal and producing output signals for a digital display (12), and involving automatic gain control (AGC) functions (20, 28), is disclosed. For each of the front-end and back-end AGC functions (... | 10/28/2008 |
| 7440015 | Gamma correction method and system A gamma correction method and system, which performs a gamma correction on an n-bit video signal to thus generate a gamma correction value. At first, a first primary index and a first sub-index are obtained by performing an index mapping on a value of the video sign... | 10/21/2008 |
| 7426250 | Automatic gain controller and controlling method thereof An automatic gain controller and the controlling method thereof are disclosed. The automatic gain controller includes a first multiplexer for receiving an input signal and a gain and generating a first output, a second multiplexer for receiving a signal time constan... | 09/16/2008 |
| 7420599 | Method and device for the FPN correction of image signals A device for the FPN correction of image signals which are generated by image cells of an image sensor comprises a discriminator for determining in which value range out of at least two value ranges a value of an image signal of an image cell is located at a predete... | 09/02/2008 |
| 7411616 | Exposure controller for camera attached to electronic equipment A photographic image is divided into a central area and a surrounding area, and video signals for the central and surrounding areas are integrated by an area integrator circuit. When an operator of video camera attached to a notebook personal computer is to photogra... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7411619 | Signal processing method, a signal processor circuit, and imaging apparatus Providing a signal processing method for image synthesis with reduced computation load, a signal processor circuit for image synthesis with reduced computation load which allows manufacturing at a low production cost, and imaging apparatus which uses the signal proc... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7391452 | Successive approximation calibration apparatus, system, and method for dynamic range extender A gain characteristic correctable dynamic range enhancement system (DRES) receives input signals from an imager device connected to a correlated double sampling (CDS) circuit for receiving the video signal from the CCD imaging device. The dynamic range enhancement s... | 06/24/2008 |
| 7367537 | Color-image pickup device in which an R picture signal is relatively enhanced with distance from center of light-reception area In a color-image pickup device, light is decomposed by R filters, G filters, B filters, and an infrared blocking film into R, G, and B components, and photoelectric conversion elements arranged in a light-reception area receive the R, G, and B components, and output... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7362382 | Automatic gain control circuitry To provide an automatic gain control circuitry which effectively works for a video signal of which pedestal level in an effective video period is different from the pedestal level in the vertical blanking period. The automatic gain control circuitry comprises a firs... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7348957 | Real-time dynamic design of liquid crystal display (LCD) panel power management through brightness control According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method of power management for a flat panel display is disclosed. The method includes: receiving image data; determining a segment mode for the received image data; selecting a portion of the received image dat... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7333673 | Method and apparatus for image detail enhancement without zigzagged edge artifact A method and system for detecting slant edge areas in an image comprising a plurality of pixels, and for preventing zigzagged slant edge artifacts in an image detail enhancement process. Image pixels that belong to a slant image edge are detected and gain suppressio... | 02/19/2008 |
| 7324165 | [Automatic contrast limiting circuit and method thereof with spatial domain infinite impulse response filter] An automatic contrast limiting circuit and method thereof with spatial domain infinite impulse response filter are disclosed. A spatial domain infinite impulse response filter is adapted to generate an output value of the spatial domain infinite impulse response fil... | 01/29/2008 |
| 7321912 | Device with dB-to-linear gain conversion An electronic dB-to-linear gain conversion system (10). The system comprises an input (12) for receiving a gain index signal (GI) representing a desired dB value. The desired dB value is selected from a set having an integer number S of dB values. The ... | 01/22/2008 |
| 7321394 | Automatic gain control for a confocal imaging system Automatic gain control is provided for a confocal imaging system to improve the quality of images produced by the system. The confocal imaging system utilizes an illumination source, such as a laser, to produce illumination which enables imaging of an object. The au... | 01/22/2008 |
| 7310113 | Camera for automatically adjusting image brightness for an image on a display Image signals outputted from a CCD to an image signal processing circuit, which performs A/D conversion, YC signal processing to convert the image signals into video signals of NTSC or the like and outputs video signals after D/A conversion. A microcomputer receives... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7304679 | Preview mode low resolution output system and method A processing system for a charge coupled device (CCD) or CMOS imaging system includes a correlated double sample (CDS) circuit for receiving data from an imager, a variable gain amplifier (VGA) having amplifiers of selectable current level to enable reduced data res... | 12/04/2007 |
| 7303126 | System and method for sensing ambient light in an optical code reader A system and method are provided for scanning an optical code, in which an optical code scanner system includes an ambient light sensor having at least one photo sensor for sensing ambient light conditions and generating at least one first electrical signal correspo... | 12/04/2007 |
| 7295238 | Image signal processing device of image sensor An image-signal processing apparatus (1) designed to process the signals output from a CCD image sensor (10) that reads pixel data for one screen, line by line, divides the pixel data into a plurality of channels and outputs the pixel data thus divided... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7289663 | Producing an extended color gamut luminance-chrominance digital image from a captured image A method for producing an extended color gamut luminance-chrominance digital image from a captured digital image includes determining an estimate of the colors of the captured digital image of an original scene and further processing to produce an extended range out... | 10/30/2007 |
| 7283166 | Automatic control method and system for electron bombarded charge coupled device (“EBCCD”) sensor Automatic control method and system for EBCCD sensor. The invention relates to a novel protective method of operating the Electron Bombarded Charge Coupled Device (EBCCD), a recently developed, high sensitivity, low noise, and expensive focal plane array sensor. In ... | 10/16/2007 |
| 7278577 | Image input system An image input system includes a solid state image pickup device and a preprocessor for performing correlated double sampling amplification on an output of the image pickup device and outputting a video signal. The preprocessor has a correlated double sampling ampli... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7265785 | Imaging apparatus and method that provide high resolution under low illumination without substantial S/N degradation An imaging apparatus provides minimal S/N degradation with a high resolution at low illumination. The imaging apparatus includes a CCD, a gain adjusting section, an LPF for performing smoothing on an output signal of the gain adjusting section, and a control section... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7262798 | System and method for simulating fill flash in photography A digital camera simulates the use of fill flash. The camera takes a series of photographs of a scene at various focus distances. The photographs are stored, along with their corresponding focus distances. The photographs are analyzed to determine the distance to ob... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7251057 | Digital camera A digital camera includes a CCD imager. When a display-use UYV signal is generated on the basis of an RGB signal of an object image photographed by the CCD imager, a CPU detects a color saturation degree of the RGB signal and reduces dynamic range of a U signal and ... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7248301 | System and method for providing camera focus feedback Disclosed are systems and method for providing feedback to a user. In one embodiment, a system and a method pertain to analyzing levels of focus of discrete portions of an image, evaluating a relative focus of the image portions, and identifying to a user the image ... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7248296 | Automatic gain control device for electronic endoscope An automatic gain control device for an electronic endoscope is provided and comprises a controllable gain amplifier, an A/D converter, a histogram circuit, and a CPU. The controllable gain amplifier amplifies image signals from an imaging device. Amplified image si... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7230644 | Image-sensing apparatus with brightness range adaptation functionality An image-sensing apparatus has an area sensor 1 that outputs image data by logarithmically converting the brightness of light incident thereon, a black-level detector 2 for detecting the black level BL of the image data at which the image data has the ... | 06/12/2007 |
| 7218418 | Digital de-screening of documents A method and a system for de-screening an image signal. The system comprises a filter bank, a control module and a blend module. The filter bank filters the image signal and produces a set of filter output signals. The control module generates at least one control s... | 05/15/2007 |
| 7206030 | Fast-convergence two-stage automatic gain control (AGC) Disclosed are methods and systems for automatic gain control (AGC) in circuits. The disclosed methods and systems provide accurate and rapidly converging automatic gain control suited for video applications. According to disclosed preferred embodiments of the invent... | 04/17/2007 |
| 7189953 | Signal processing circuit, image sensor IC, and signal processing method A signal processing circuit has a sample/hold circuit for sampling an input signal comprised of a first signal and a second signal and for holding the first signal. The first signal comprises an optical signal obtained due to storage of electric charges generated du... | 03/13/2007 |
| 7173987 | Analog front end circuit The present invention relates to an analog front end circuit which is preferably used for taking out an image signal from a charge coupled device, that is used as image pickup means in an electronic camera such as an electronic still camera, a video camera and the l... | 02/06/2007 |