Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Kensuke Takai

Hiroyuki Matsuki

Katsuya Otoi

Hideaki Kawamura

Zhang Xiaomang

An apparatus for processing an image includes a memory for storing the image data of each pixel in the plurality of unit blocks, a direct memory access controller for reading the image data from the memory by accessing the memory on a block-by-block basis by generating the addresses of the pixels in each unit block, and a plurality of image processing modules for receiving the image data of each unit block read based on the addresses generated by the direct memory access controller and sequentially transferred via a data bus, processing the image data of the unit block, and outputting the processed image data of the unit block.

Image processing apparatus, image processing method and portable imaging apparatus

An image processing apparatus for processing complementary color image data output from an image capturing element including a complementary-color filter is provided. The apparatus comprises a middle-high-range luminance component compensation section for compensating for a middle-high-range luminance component of a low-frequency luminance signal generated based on the complementary color image data such that the low-frequency luminance signal has substantially an ideal frequency characteristic which is lower than or equal to a predetermined frequency.

Image processing apparatus

A data processing system comprises: a plurality of data processing modules for performing a series of data processing, wherein each of the plurality of data processing modules processes data; a bus connected to each of the plurality of data processing modules; a memory controller for writing the data processed by each of the plurality of data processing modules into a memory via the bus, and for reading out the written data from the memory via the bus; a DMA controller for determining operation of each of the plurality of data processing modules, and outputting an address to the memory controller, the data processed by said data processing module being written at the address and the DMA controller including a data parallel processing control section. The plurality of data processing modules includes first and second data processing modules, and the second data processing module is subsequent to the first data processing module in the series of processing. The DMA controller has a coordinate counter for managing the address, and according to a value of the coordinate counter, the DMA controller controls the first and second data processing modules so that the second data processing module starts data processing before the first data processing module completes data processing.

Data processing system and data processing method

In a positioning device, a maximum-value/minimum-value calculating section calculates the maximum value and minimum value of densities with respect to each of a target image and a reference image that has been preliminarily stored. Further, based upon the maximum values and minimum values of densities of the two images, a barrel-shifter gradation conversion section carries out bit shifts of the original images of the two images respectively so as to allow them to contain effective bits related to contrast, and gradation-converts the respective images so as to have numbers of density levels that are fewer than the original numbers of density levels thereof, thereby outputting the resulting images that have been gradation-converted. With this arrangement, even if the contrast of an original image is poor, it is possible to reduce the amount of calculations for finding the degree of similarity between the reference image and the target image without impairing the operation accuracy in finding the degree of similarity. Therefore, even if the contrast of an original image is poor, it is possible to carry out an effective rough search by using a rough search section. Moreover, since the degree of similarity is found with high precision with a minimum of the amount of calculations, the circuit scale can be minimized to the corresponding extent.

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Kyoto, Japan

Kensuke Takai