Denso Corporation

Kazushige Hattori

Kazuhide Ohta

Hirotaka Suzuki

Nobuhiko Inoue

Toshihiro Hattori

Bingchen Wang

An image processing apparatus includes an image acquirement section, a correction section, and an image production section. The image acquirement section acquires an image signal representing an image, the image signal is generated by light receiving elements that receive lights from a specific space preliminarily defined in a vicinity of a vehicle via a near infrared passing filter mainly transmitting near infrared lights and a visible light passing filter transmitting visible lights and near infrared lights, respectively. The image includes multiple areas and indicates the specific space projected onto a plane. The correction section corrects each area of the image by amplifying intensity of near infrared lights with an increasing amplification factor when a difference between the intensity of near infrared lights and intensity of visible lights and near infrared lights becomes smaller. The image production section produces a new image based on the corrected areas of the image.

Night-vision image processing apparatus

A night-vision device is provided with a projection unit, an image pickup unit, a luminance ratio determining unit, and a projection control unit. The luminance ratio determining unit determines whether a determination luminance ratio in a set region is within a predetermined luminance range as a luminance ratio at which a subject to be detected forms an emphasized image, said set region having been set at least in a part of an image obtained by means of the image pickup unit. In the cases where the determination luminance ratio is out of the predetermined luminance range, the projection control unit controls the intensity of near-infrared light emitted from the projection unit such that the determination luminance ratio is within the predetermined luminance range.

Night-vision device

An image processor outputs an image containing relatively much information of a central area in the horizontal direction. A mask composed of an upper mask and a lower mask is superimposed on the image. The upper mask is concave on the lower side thereof and disposed along the upper side of the image. The lower mask is concave on the upper side thereof and disposed along the lower side of the image. When the image is masked with this mask, the peripheral portion of the image that is prone to be distorted becomes invisible. Therefore, discomfort a user feels because of distortion can be reduced. In addition, the user can view the image with the much information of the central area of the image in the horizontal direction.

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Kariya, Japan

Kazushige Hattori