Bizarre Patents
A forehead support apparatus for resting a standing users forehead against a wall above a bathroom commode or urinal or beneath a showerhead.
PatentStorm News
Make the Most of Our Site
See this month's Top Inventors and Most Cited Patents.
Stay on top of the latest innovations by subscribing to an RSS feed.
Registered users: Manage your profile.
| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8189096 | Video light system and method for improving facial recognition using a video camera A video lighting system (100) for use with a personal computer or other electronic device (103) includes a display (105) that is used in connection with a microprocessor running facial recognition software that is used to prevent unauthorized ac... | 05/29/2012 |
| 8189095 | Method and apparatus for superresolution imaging An apparatus and method are disclosed for providing superresolution imaging of a target, including remote targets. An apparatus for superresolution imaging may include a receiver having a predefined receiving aperture for capturing an image of the target. The appara... | 05/29/2012 |
| 8125563 | Camera chip, camera and method for image recording The invention relates to a camera chip (C) for image acquisition. It is characterized in that pixel groups (P1, P2, . . . ) may be exposed at different times with the aid of shutter signals (S1, S2, . . . ). ... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8125562 | Method and apparatus for automatically optimizing optical contrast in automated equipment Techniques for automatically adjusting and/or optimizing the color and/or intensity of the illuminating light used in a vision system is presented. The intensity of each of a plurality of illuminating light colors is allowed to be independently adjusted to adapt the... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8102465 | Photographing apparatus and photographing method for photographing an image by controlling light irradiation on a subject A photographing apparatus including: an imaging unit for obtaining image data by imaging a subject; a light irradiation unit for irradiating light onto the subject when photographing; an eye detection unit for detecting a human or animal eye; and a light control uni... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8085340 | Camera A camera is disclosed, which has a simple structure and capable of detecting a flash light amount at high accuracy. The camera comprises a camera body unit, a exterior unit fixed to the camera body unit, a flash unit provided on the exterior unit, a first light-lead... | 12/27/2011 |
| 8081254 | In-camera based method of detecting defect eye with high accuracy A portable digital image acquisition device includes multiple lenses and/or multiple flashes. A main digital image and first and second reference images are acquired. The first and second reference images are acquired with different flash-lens combinations that have... | 12/20/2011 |
| 8059189 | Image capturing apparatus and image capturing method An image capturing apparatus performs photographing multiple times and composing these multiple images to obtain one image of a correct exposure. The apparatus includes an image capturing unit, an illumination unit and an image composition unit. The image capturing ... | 11/15/2011 |
| 8059188 | Apparatus, system, method, and program for optimizing an image using illumination parameter An image processing apparatus includes a memory that memorizes a plurality of pickup images in which an object has been picked up by varying an irradiation direction of a light; an extracting portion that extracts an area image of an area indicated by a user from ea... | 11/15/2011 |
| 8009226 | Digital camera with improved portability and ease of use A digital camera having a camera body, a shutter release button, a photographic optical system, a display cover, a lens/strobe flash cover, a nonskid grip pits/projection, a mode dial, operation buttons, indication lamps, a display screen, and a strobe flashing unit... | 08/30/2011 |
| 7978259 | Image capturing apparatus for guiding light emitted from a plurality of light emitting devices An image capturing apparatus illuminates an object and captures an image of the object using the reflected light from the object. On a circuit substrate mounted an image sensor, a plurality of light-emitting devices are mounted in the peripheral positions of the ima... | 07/12/2011 |
| 7961247 | Apparatus for acquiring an image of a predetermined extract of a moving printed product An apparatus and method for acquiring an image of a predetermined extract of a moving printed product employs at least one black-and-white camera with a two-dimensional electronic image sensor and one or more illumination devices suitable for pulse-like illumination... | 06/14/2011 |
| 7944501 | Image sensing apparatus and image sensing apparatus control method An image sensing apparatus has a plurality of pixels arranged in a matrix-like layout and containing photoelectric conversion devices reads signals in units of one line or a plurality of lines and is provide with an image sensing device 14 adapted to read a s... | 05/17/2011 |
| 7940326 | Device to transfer photo images into digital data A kind of device to transfer photo images into digital data includes a body wherein photo taking mechanisms are set inside and insert-fit grooves and positioning mechanisms are set with internal lighting printed circuit boards at the other side. A reflecting shield ... | 05/10/2011 |
| 7929047 | Image taking apparatus When a release button is pressed in the image adding mode and flash-on mode, a system control section instructs a timing generation section to continuously supply a timing signal to an imaging section, thereby causing the imaging section to perform high speed contin... | 04/19/2011 |
| 7924343 | Photographing apparatus and exposure control method A photographing apparatus comprises a photographing device which photographs an image of an object; an illumination device which emits light at the photographing time and illuminates the object; a face detection device which detects a face area and a size of the fac... | 04/12/2011 |
| 7898593 | System and method for synchronizing an illuminator to a video camera The present invention provides synchronization and control between the wavelength of a multi-wavelength illuminator and the image frames acquired by a video camera. In accordance with the present invention, the trailing edge of a camera expose-signal triggers a pre-... | 03/01/2011 |
| 7889275 | System and method for continuous flash A photo illumination technology that facilitates user selectable illumination of an existing photo ranging from full artificial flash illumination to ambient light illumination and every gradation between. The technology in one embodiment employs a digital camera fe... | 02/15/2011 |
| 7847858 | System and method for controlling photoflash A system for controlling photoflash includes a signal processing unit, a calculating unit, a photoflash module and an adjusting unit. The photoflash module includes a capacitor. The signal processing unit is configured for analyzing image information to get a curren... | 12/07/2010 |
| 7843505 | Image-capturing device, image processing device and image processing program product for image composition processing An image-capturing device includes: an image-capturing element that includes a first color filter that allows first color component light corresponding to a first color component to be transmitted and a second color filter that allows second color component light co... | 11/30/2010 |
| 7777808 | Image capturing apparatus having distance measurement function An image capturing apparatus illuminates an object and captures an image of the object using the reflected light from the object. The image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor for capturing an image of the object by receiving reflected light, distance-measu... | 08/17/2010 |
| 7777807 | On-board object detector and on-board object detection method An on-board object detector and on-board object detection method for detecting an object present in a pickup image at a high level of precision. A controller controls a projector to irradiate a line of light while shifting the irradiation angle, and images in the co... | 08/17/2010 |
| 7746405 | Illumination apparatus, imaging apparatus and irradiation method for an imaging apparatus comprising light emitting diodes which are duty-driven during an imaging period of a frame period There is provided an illumination apparatus used for imaging a moving picture made up of a plurality of frames, and for irradiating an auxiliary light from a light source constituted by one or a plurality of LEDs onto a photo-object. The one or plurality of LEDs are... | 06/29/2010 |
| 7738032 | Apparatus for and method of taking and viewing images of the skin A self-contained, portable apparatus and corresponding method for capturing, displaying and analyzing images of a person includes a housing for containing a digital camera, a light source capable of providing at least two different wavelengths of light, a touch-scre... | 06/15/2010 |
| 7738034 | Image processing apparatus with illumination unit and imaging unit in different casings A control unit converts image information into differential signals to transmit to a controller. The control unit receives control signals (differential signals) for controlling a lens unit or an illumination unit, to control the lens unit or the illumination unit. ... | 06/15/2010 |
| 7738033 | Illumination device for a monitoring camera An illumination device is described for a monitoring camera with a plurality of light devices, each having a light device axis. The light device axes of the invention, intersect an optical axis of the monitoring camera. The illumination device can have light ... | 06/15/2010 |
| 7728905 | Image capturing apparatus having an image capturing system disposed close to an illumination system This invention relates to an image capturing apparatus for illuminating and capturing an image of an object using reflected light therefrom, and is objective to a miniaturized construction and simplified assembly. A plurality of light-emitting devices is mounted aro... | 06/01/2010 |
| 7705910 | Photographic device for obtaining a plurality of images at a time by rolling shutter method A photographic device includes an image sensor in which a plurality of pixels are arrayed. A vertical scan circuit selects horizontal drive lines of the image sensor in order. And a horizontal scan circuit reads out in order voltages due to electric charges from the... | 04/27/2010 |
| 7683965 | System and method for flash control The invention concerns a method (200) and system (100) for flash control. The method can include the steps of—in a portable electronic device (122)—detecting (212) a request to operate a flash component (132), determining (2... | 03/23/2010 |
| 7679671 | Image capturing for capturing an image of an object by illuminating the object and receiving light from the object An image capturing apparatus illuminate and captures an image of an object using reflected light from the object. In the apparatus, a plurality of light-emitting devices are mounted in the periphery of an image sensor, and the light of the plurality of light-emittin... | 03/16/2010 |
| 7667766 | Adjustable spectrum flash lighting for image acquisition A light module associated with the camera provides flash light having a spectral content that is adjustable according to one or more drive signals. The light module includes one or more emitters of light of at least two different colors that are individually accessi... | 02/23/2010 |
| 7663689 | Method and apparatus for optimizing capture device settings through depth information A method for adjusting image capture settings for an image capture device is provided. The method initiates with identifying a scene. Then, an image of the scene is captured. The method includes generating a depth mask of the scene from data defining the image of th... | 02/16/2010 |
| 7663690 | Camera executing strobe photographing using filters A digital camera configured to carry out a strobe photographing is provided. The digital camera includes an imaging optical system, which forms an optical image of an object with its background, an image capturing system configured to capture the optical image of th... | 02/16/2010 |
| 7652716 | Computer-controlled lighting for video communication A video communication system may include a computer program that implements a feedback control process for automatically controlling a light. The feedback control process may include receiving an image from a video camera and determining an initial difference betwee... | 01/26/2010 |
| 7646423 | Image capture apparatus with illuminator and distance measuring light emitting device An image capturing apparatus illuminates and captures an image of an object using reflected light therefrom, with simplified distance measurement. A plurality of light-emitting devices are mounted around an image sensor, and a light guide member guides the light of ... | 01/12/2010 |
| 7646422 | Illumination and imaging system with glare reduction and method therefor A system and method are provided for actively illuminating and capturing images of an object, such as a driver of a vehicle to reduce glare. The system includes a video imaging camera orientated to generate images of the subject object (e.g., eye(s)) in successive v... | 01/12/2010 |
| 7643084 | Lighting control apparatus A lighting control apparatus of a photographing apparatus comprises a lighting device and a signal supplying processor. The lighting device illuminates a photographic subject by receiving one of a sine wave signal, and a half-wave rectification wave signal, a saw wa... | 01/05/2010 |
| 7636123 | Image capturing apparatus with light emission controlling mechanism and method of controlling the image capturing apparatus This invention has as its object to precisely detect the face of a person from a captured image even in a situation with an insufficient brightness (e.g., when an image of a person is to be photographed to have a nightscape as a background). To this end, an image ca... | 12/22/2009 |
| 7612824 | Image-quality adjustment of image data An image quality adjuster adjusts luminance values of image data sing the image data generated by an image generating device, and image generation record information associated with the image data containing at least light emission information for a supplemental lig... | 11/03/2009 |
| 7593056 | Infrared vision illumination enhancement A camera and illuminator combination unit has a camera to generate images within a predetermined field of view, the field of view having a central axis, and an illuminator having an illumination axis, the illumination axis being non-parallel with the central axis. A... | 09/22/2009 |
