Sony Corporation

Nec Corporation

Mitsubishi Materials Silicon Corporation

Nec Electronics Corporation

Sumco Corporation

Matsushita Graphic Communication Systems, Inc.

Ken Nakajima

Toshihisa Yamamoto

Nobuyuki Sato

Hideki Matsumoto

Yoichi Mizutani

Masayuki Takezawa

Miyuki Okada

Isao Kawanishi

Seiji Kobayashi

Hiroaki Ono

Tomoo Mitsunaga

Satoshi Mitsui

Chikako Sano

Keiji Mabuchi

Takashi Abe

Nobuo Nakamura

Hiroki Sato

Eiichi Funatsu

Hiroaki Fujita

Tomoyuki Umeda

Katsuaki Hirota

Fumiaki Kato

Hiroyuki Shiraki

Takamasa Wada

Tamiya Karashima

Hiroshi Yamashita

Toshiaki Ono

Tsuyoshi Yoshida

Nobuyuki Matsushita

Naoya Katoh

Takami Mizukura

Wataru Sugimura

Takao Tamura

Hiroshi Nozue

Hiroki Nagahama

Kenichi Sakai

Yuji Kawamura

Takayuki Kubo

Tokuichiro Yamada

Kazuhiko Nishiwaki

Kazuhiro Ikezawa

Akira Higuchi

Mikiko Yamada

Zhiwen Li

Nobuyuki Satou

Tomohiko Naruse

Mitsuo Suzuki

Satoshi c/o Sony Emcs Corp Mitsui

A face detection device for detecting the face of a person in an input image includes the a face detection circuit, a signal processing circuit, and a controller. The face detection circuit includes a hardware circuit that is configured to detect a face in an input image. The signal processing circuit is configured to perform signal processing based on an input image signal in accordance with a rewritable program including a face detection program for detecting a face in an input image. The controller is configured to allow the face detection circuit and the signal processing circuit to perform face detection on an image of a frame or on respective images of adjacent frames among consecutive frames, and to control face detection by the signal processing circuit on the basis of a face detection result obtained by the face detection circuit.

Face detection device, imaging apparatus, and face detection method

An imaging apparatus for performing efficient signal processing depending on the operational mode. In the finder mode, a CCD interfacedecimates horizontal components of image data supplied from an image generating unitto one-third and moreover processes the decimated image data with data conversion and resolution conversion to produce Y, Cb and Cr image data which are routed to and written in an image memoryover a memory controller. In the recording mode, the CCD interfacecauses the image data from the image generating unitto be written in the image memoryvia memory controllerafter decimation and gamma correction etc. The camera DSPreads out the image data via memory controllerfrom the image memoryto effect data conversion for writing the resulting data via memory controllerin the image memory

Imaging apparatus

A face detection device for detecting the face of a person in an input image may include the following elements: a face detection circuit including a hardware circuit configured to detect a face in an input image; a signal processing circuit configured to perform signal processing based on an input image signal in accordance with a rewritable program including a face detection program for detecting a face in an input image; and a controller configured to allow the face detection circuit and the signal processing circuit to perform face detection on an image of a frame or on respective images of adjacent frames among consecutive frames, and to control face detection by the signal processing circuit on the basis of a face detection result obtained by the face detection circuit.

Face detection device, imaging apparatus and face detection method

A face detection device for detecting the face of a person in an input image may include the following elements: a face detection circuit including a hardware circuit configured to detect a face in an input image; a signal processing circuit configured to perform signal processing based on an input image signal in accordance with a rewritable program including a face detection program for detecting a face in an input image; and a controller configured to allow the face detection circuit and the signal processing circuit to perform face detection in a parallel manner on an image of a frame or on respective images of adjacent frames among consecutive frames, and to output a final face detection result on the basis of face detection results obtained by the face detection circuit and the signal processing circuit.

A method and apparatus to remove color noise included in raw data while effectively preventing image quality degradation. For interest pixels serially set onto a mosaic image formed of raw data, conversion is executed into a pixel value for noise removal based on a processing reference pixel value having a unified color signal component in each interest pixel, noise is removed from the pixel value for noise removal, and the pixel value for noise removal with noise removed is converted into the source pixel value, whereby only color noise can be removed without affecting a luminance signal.

Generating full color images by demosaicing noise removed pixels from images

An image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup unit configured to photoelectrically convert light into an electrical signal serving as an imaging signal and output the imaging signal at predetermined frame intervals, a memory configured to store the imaging signal output from the image pickup unit, a first signal processing unit configured to generate a Y/C signal from the imaging signal output from the image pickup unit, a second signal processing unit configured to generate a Y/C signal from the imaging signal stored in the memory, and a control unit configured to control power supplied to each of the first and second signal processing units.

Imaging apparatus and associated methodology of independently powering components to limit power consumption

An imaging apparatus capturing and recording a moving image and a static image at the same time includes a converter converting an optical image of a subject into a pixel signal, performing decimation on the pixel signal and outputting the pixel signal that has been subjected to decimation when recording of the moving image is performed but recording of the static image is not performed, and outputting the pixel signal that has not been subjected to decimation when recording of the moving image and the static image is performed; an eliminating section performing decimation on the pixel signal output from the converter only when recording of the moving image and the static image is performed; a moving image data generator generating moving image data; a static image data generator generating static image data; and a recorder recording the moving image data and the static image data.

Imaging apparatus, imaging method, and program

An image capturing apparatus for capturing an image with solid state imaging devices may include a compressing section, a memory, a decompressing section, and a signal processing section. The compressing section may compress digitalized data of an image captured with the solid state imaging devices. The memory may temporarily store the compressed image data that is compressed by the compressing section. The decompressing section may decompress the compressed image data that is read out from the memory. The signal processing section may perform an image quality correction operation on the image data decompressed by the decompressing section. The compressed image data may contain a maximum value and a minimum value of pixel data in a block, information regarding positions of the maximum value and the minimum value in the block, and quantized data.

Image capturing apparatus, imaging circuit, and image capturing method

An image by using a solid-state imaging sensor, the imaging apparatus including: a compression section configured to compress image data by dividing the image data into blocks each composed of same color component pixels adjacent to each other as a unit of compression; a memory used for temporarily storing compressed image data; a decompression section configured to decompress the compressed image data read out from the memory; and a signal processing section configured to carry out an image-quality correction process on decompressed image data, wherein each of the blocks is split in advance into two quantization-subject areas, block types are distinguished from each other by the position of the inter-area boundary between the two quantization-subject areas, and the compression section has a dynamic-range computation sub-section, a block-type select sub-section, and a quantization processing sub-section are provided.

Imaging apparatus, imaging circuit and imaging method

An image signal processing apparatus may include a partial image data block obtaining unit configured to obtain partial image data blocks by dividing image data corresponding to a predetermined screen having a predetermined number of horizontal and vertical pixels into image data portions, each having a predetermined number of partial horizontal and vertical pixels, at predetermined positions; a packet generating unit configured to generate packets, each storing one of the partial image data blocks; and one or more signal processing units configured to receive the packets from a transmission path through which the image data is transmitted, perform signal processing in units of partial image data blocks stored in the packets, and output the image data in the form of packets to the transmission path.

Image signal processing apparatus and image signal processing method

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Tokyo, Japan

Ken Nakajima