Kabushiki Kaisha Photron

Masataka Tsuji

Kenji Mitsui

Shigeru Yamada

In an image recording apparatus, an imaging surface of an image device is formed so as to store and read out an image by arranging two-dimensionally a plurality of photoelectric transfer elements, the imaging surface is divided along lines into a plurality of blocks, scanning lines are formed in accordance with the photoelectric transfer elements arranged in a horizontal direction of the respective divided blocks, and the plurality of scanning lines of the respective blocks are parallelly linearly scanned to output a multichannel video signals. The image recording apparatus comprises a first scanning circuit for setting a plurality of linear scanning direction start positions along the scanning line direction of the blocks and selecting a block to be read out, a second scanning circuit for selecting the linear scanning start positions and numbers of picture elements to be linearly scanned and a drive circuit for transmitting drive signals to the first and second scanning circuit, wherein the first and second scanning circuits are controlled by the drive signals to select image areas having different linear scanning start positions from each other and then to output multichannel video signals from the image areas.

Image recording apparatus capable of selecting partial image areas for video readout

A high speed imaging apparatus comprises an imaging sensor composed of a multiplicity of photoelectric converting elements which are two-dimensionally arrayed, the imaging sensor being sectioned into a plurality of blocks by effecting predetermined splitting in a vertical row direction and in a horizontal column direction and the blocks including photoelectric converting element groups, vertical and horizontal scanning circuit capable of parallel-reading of the photoelectric converting element groups of the respective blocks in vertical and horizontal direction, and a drive circuit for driving the vertical and horizontal scanning circuit so as to sequentially selecting one or plurality of the blocks within said imaging sensor which are then read and scanned. The imaging apparatus may further comprise an operation sensor for detecting a moving direction of an object, a control unit for calculating the blocks to be selected and a reading order of the selected blocks in response to a signal from the operation sensor, and a block selection address generation circuit through which an output signal from the control unit is inputted to the drive circuit so as to sequentially change over the blocks of the imaging sensor in accordance with the moving direction of the object.

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Kobe, Japan

Masataka Tsuji