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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8164683 | Auto-focus method and digital camera An auto-focus method for camera is provided. First, a digital signal processor sets a first parameter p and a second parameter q. An image capture unit captures an only image. Then, the digital signal processor utilizes the only image, the first parameter p and the ... | 04/24/2012 |
| 7995133 | Method, apparatus for correcting image signal from image sensor, and imaging system with apparatus A method of correcting an image signal generated by a charge coupled device (CCD) image sensor in an imaging system is provided. The imaging system stores a number of gamma correction curves, each of which includes a respective correction factor for increasing contr... | 08/09/2011 |
| 7990462 | Simple method for calculating camera defocus from an image scene An imaging acquisition system that generates a picture depth from an auto focus curve generated from picture of a three dimensional spatial scene is described. The auto focus curve comprises a step edge. The system generates the depth based on the step edge and a re... | 08/02/2011 |
| 7978256 | Imaging device having manual and auto focus and a control method for the imaging device An imaging device, comprising a photographing lens having a manual focus mechanism, an imaging unit for receiving subject light flux, that has been made incident by the photographing lens, on an imaging surface, a display unit for carrying out a live view display op... | 07/12/2011 |
| 7911527 | Focusing apparatus and focusing method A focusing apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention comprises: an image pickup device which obtains an image signal of a subject that is captured by an image capturing device, wherein the image capturing device incorporates a focus optical system th... | 03/22/2011 |
| 7855745 | Imaging device capable of reducing power consumption An electronic camera is provided with a power-saving S-AF mode and a C-AF mode as focus adjustment modes. In the S-AF mode, focus adjustment is performed upon half depression of a release button. In the C-AF mode, the focus adjustment is repeated during a shooting m... | 12/21/2010 |
| 7738028 | Camera having a focusing adjusting system A camera with a photographing optical system, including a focus adjusting system which captures images at different focal positions via an image pickup device while moving a focusing lens group within a controllable searching range, and moves the focusing lens group... | 06/15/2010 |
| 7733413 | Imaging apparatus with auto-focus function An imaging apparatus includes an image pickup device that converts light from a subject to image data a drive section that drives the image pickup device, an auto-focus section that performs an auto-focus operation, and a focus control section that controls the auto... | 06/08/2010 |
| 7598996 | System and method for focusing a digital camera A method of focusing a digital camera module with an image sensor including capturing an image of a test target with the digital camera module, determining a focus quality of the image with the image sensor, outputting a signal related to the focus quality of the im... | 10/06/2009 |
| 7598997 | Imaging apparatus and focus control method based on a number of automatic focus scan stages, and recording medium storing a program for executing such a method An imaging apparatus achieves a high-speed automatic focus operation and a reduction in power consumption and prevents a miss focus due to an erroneous determination. The imaging apparatus has an automatic focus function, which detects a current position of a focal ... | 10/06/2009 |
| 7583311 | Automatic focusing device and focusing method In an automatic focusing device generating a luminance signal by scanning a picked-up digital image signal, evaluating the contrast of the luminance signal, and driving its focusing based on the evaluation; the scanning includes at least a part where scan is perform... | 09/01/2009 |
| 7538815 | Autofocus system and method using focus measure gradient Described are autofocusing algorithms and system implementations for machine inspection applications. The disclosed algorithms depend neither on the type of image (visual, infrared, spectrometric, scanning, etc.) nor on the type of image detector. Disclosed image fi... | 05/26/2009 |
| 7502065 | Focus detection method and focus detection apparatus A focus detection apparatus includes a focusing lens group, and a controller. The controller establishes a first predetermined number and a first criterial value if a maximum contrast value and/or minimum contrast value is outside a predetermined range, and a second... | 03/10/2009 |
| 7471330 | Lens controlling apparatus and image-taking apparatus with focus control based on first and second signals derived from different focus control methods A lens controlling apparatus is disclosed, which is capable of preventing an execution of irrelevant AF control in a combination of TV-AF method and an AF method other than the TV-AF method. The lens controlling apparatus comprises: a first signal generating section... | 12/30/2008 |
| 7463303 | Electronic still camera with capability to perform optimal focus detection according to selected mode An electronic still camera includes a finder optical system for viewing a subject image. An imaging section obtains the subject image. A display section displays the subject image based on image data associated with the subject image obtained by the imaging section.... | 12/09/2008 |
| 7440690 | Focus detection apparatus and control method thereof An output from an auto focus sensor is converted into a digital signal by an A/D converting section, and an output from the A/C converting section is stored in a memory section. Further, a second AF arithmetic section is used to concurrently execute a plurality of f... | 10/21/2008 |
| 7423685 | Image-taking apparatus with first control method in which focus lens is driven based upon signal from image-pickup device and second control method in which focus lens is driven based on signal representing object distance An image-taking apparatus capable of appropriate AF control without depending on a zoom enlargement ratio is disclosed. The image-taking apparatus includes a signal processing section which generates an image signal based on the output signal of an image-pickup devi... | 09/09/2008 |
| 7421195 | Apparatus for acquiring focussing information and method of acquiring focusing information A storage unit is configured to store beforehand a table that shows a relation between spread parameters and command values supplied to a control unit to acquire a focused image of an object, and information that designates a command value corresponding to an inflec... | 09/02/2008 |
| 7412159 | Image pickup apparatus and defocus amount correction value calculation method An image pickup apparatus, in which a light is projected toward a physical object by projection means, and based on the reflected light by the physical object of the light, a defocus amount is detected (steps S2003 to S2008) by the first focus detectio... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7403230 | Image-taking apparatus An image-taking apparatus is disclosed which achieves focusing in a reduce time with higher accuracy of an in-focus position search in a TV-AF method to minimize occurrence of unnatural focus changes. The image-taking apparatus includes an image-taking element, a fi... | 07/22/2008 |
| 7403710 | Image processing apparatus and image processing method This invention provides an image processing apparatus that corrects an image blur by using a plurality of images acquired by image capturing means. The apparatus comprises: blur detection means that detects a blur amount between the plurality of images; image compos... | 07/22/2008 |
| 7345706 | Auto focus system Auto focus control is exerted based on a focus evaluation value indicating a degree of sharpness of an image obtained from a plurality of image pickup devices placed at positions of different light path lengths. There is provided a device which makes a correction on... | 03/18/2008 |
| 7342608 | Focus detecting method, focus detecting mechanism and image measuring device having focus detecting mechanism Focus detecting methods and focus detecting mechanisms of an image measuring device able to execute focus detection at high speed with high accuracy, and image measuring device having the focus detecting mechanisms are provided. A rotation driving device rotates and... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7324150 | Imaging apparatus for determining a focused state An imaging apparatus including: an imaging device; a focusing operation control; and a decision control for comparing an evaluation value obtained from present image data with an evaluation value obtained from last image data obtained when the focus system leans was... | 01/29/2008 |
| 7319487 | Focusing apparatus, camera and focus position detecting method A focusing apparatus includes a filter unit for performing frequency filtering processing on an image pickup signal, and a focus position detecting unit for detecting a focus position based on the contrast value of the image pickup signal having undergone the freque... | 01/15/2008 |
| 7317488 | Method of and system for autofocus An image of a subject is taken by a solid image taking device including a first image taking element having a plurality of pixels and a second image taking element having a plurality of pixels smaller than those of the first image taking element. First and second ev... | 01/08/2008 |
| 7310109 | Protective device for safeguarding a hazardous area and method of checking the functional reliability of such a device The present invention discloses a protective device for safeguarding a hazardous area and a method for checking the functional reliability of such a device. The protective device has an image recording unit with an image sensor which includes a large number of light... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7302112 | Contour-emphasizing circuit An edge enhancement circuit uses bandpass filters to separate an original video signal into low-, middle- and high-frequency band edge components which will be supplied to waveform shaping circuits. Each of the waveform shaping circuits detects an amplitude peak lev... | 11/27/2007 |
| 7301579 | Imaging apparatus An AF controlling unit (83) starts an outside light AF operation controlled by an outside AF unit (81) by a half-pressing of a shutter release button (61), and a change over between the outside AF operation and a CCDAF operation controlled by a ... | 11/27/2007 |
| 7298413 | Photographing apparatus with automatic focus A photographing apparatus is provided that comprises a photographing lens capable of moving a focal plane of a subject image, a CCD for receiving the subject image and outputting a signal into which the subject image is photo-electrically transferred, as image outpu... | 11/20/2007 |
| 7289153 | Scanning type image pick-up apparatus and a scanning type laser beam receive apparatus The present invention has an object of realizing highly reliable search with high precision by obtaining a clear view image over a wide view. In particular, a reflection mirror is formed so as to correspond to an image pick-up element at a focus surface of a converg... | 10/30/2007 |
| 7268817 | Method of automatically focusing using a quadratic function in camera A method of automatically focusing a camera determines a position of a focus lens where an amount of a high frequency in an image signal is a maximum. The amount of a high frequency included in an image signal is measured at intervals of multiple focus motor steps. ... | 09/11/2007 |
| 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 |
| 7250974 | Image pickup apparatus with improved auto focusing and method of autofocusing An image pickup apparatus for electronically photographing a still image using a photo-voltaic transducer device. The focusing position of a focusing lens is detected from the contrast of the photographed image as AF supplementary light is illuminated on the object.... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7196729 | AF evaluation value calculating device The present invention provides an AF evaluation value calculating device in which speed of AF control does not deteriorate even when a number of AF areas are set. The AF evaluation value calculating device for calculating an AF evaluation value used for AF (auto-foc... | 03/27/2007 |
| 7194145 | Method for contrast matching of multiple images of the same object or scene to a common reference image A method of imaging and a system therefore are provided. The imaging system includes an image forming device for generating a first image and a second image and a controller coupled to the image forming device. The controller receives the first image and the second ... | 03/20/2007 |
| 7190395 | Apparatus, method, program and recording medium for image restoration An image of which restoration degree is determined based on the difference between each pixel and a neighboring pixel of the pixel in a light receiving element array 101 is divided into a plurality of areas based on the determined restoration degree, and the ... | 03/13/2007 |
| 7187413 | Method and system for using an image based autofocus algorithm An image based autofocus method and system that includes receiving image data; monitoring and analyzing the contrast between different portions of the image data in determining the location of a target wherein the different portions of the image data contain at leas... | 03/06/2007 |
| 7184089 | Electronic camera and photographing composition determination apparatus mountable on electronic camera A photographing composition determination apparatus of an electronic camera includes an area sensor having a plurality of light receiving elements and disposed in an area shape so as to correspond to a photographing scene. A light receiving lens introduces an object... | 02/27/2007 |
| 7133078 | Automatic focal point sensing device An automatic focal point sensing device includes an image sensor on which an optical image is projected and which photoelectrically converts the image pixel by pixel to generate image data, a first calculation circuit which generates more than one pixel block, each ... | 11/07/2006 |
