IMAGING APPARATUS, IMAGING PROCESSING LOGIC ELEMENT, AND IMAGING ELEMENT

• Main Authors: NISHIZAWA AKIHITO, TAKAHASHI DAIKI
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: 18.04.2019
• Subjects: ACCESSORIES THEREFOR; APPARATUS OR ARRANGEMENTS EMPLOYING ANALOGOUS TECHNIQUES USINGWAVES OTHER THAN OPTICAL WAVES; APPARATUS OR ARRANGEMENTS FOR TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS OR FORPROJECTING OR VIEWING THEM; CINEMATOGRAPHY; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY; PHOTOGRAPHY; PHYSICS; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION

To provide an imaging apparatus that can automatically obtain a wide dynamic range image by appropriately selecting or combining light and dark images in pixel units.SOLUTION: An imaging apparatus 200 includes an image combining unit 6, an exposure control unit 7, and a threshold generation unit 8. The exposure control unit 7 controls the exposure of an imaging unit for each field. Then, the threshold generation unit 8 detects a signal of a bright image of long second exposure corresponding to a portion near black of a dark image of short second exposure, and a signal of a dark image of short second exposure corresponding to a portion near white of the bright image of the long second exposure to generate a first threshold Th1 and a second threshold Th2 from such a detection result. In addition, the image combining unit 6 generates an illumination light component from the average signal of the dark image and the bright image and compares the two threshold values and the illumination light component in pixel units to combine the dark image and the bright image.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1 【課題】画素単位で明るい映像と暗い映像の選択或いは合成を適切に行うことで、自動で広いダイナミックレンジの映像を得ることができる撮像装置を提供する。【解決手段】撮像装置２００は、画像合成部６、露光制御部７、閾値生成部８を有する。露光制御部７は、撮像部の露光をフィールド毎に制御する。そして、閾値生成部８は、短秒露光の暗い映像の黒近傍となる部分に対応する長秒露光の明るい映像の信号と、長秒露光の明るい映像の白近傍となる部分に対応する短秒露光の暗い映像の信号を検出し、この検出結果から第１閾値Ｔｈ１と第２閾値Ｔｈ２を生成する。また、画像合成部６は、該暗い映像と該明るい映像の平均信号から照明光成分を生成し、該二つの閾値と照明光成分を画素単位で比較することで該暗い映像と該明るい映像の合成を行う。【選択図】図１