Minolta Company, Ltd.

Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha

Minolta Camera Co., Ltd.

Noriyuki Okisu

Shinya Matsuda

Toshihiko Karasaki

Shinichi Fujii

Jun Minakuti

Motohiro Nakanishi

Mutsuhiro Yamanaka

Keiji Tamai

Hiroshi Ueda

Tokuji Ishida

Toru Matsui

Shoichi Minato

Satoshi Nakamura

Kazuchika Sato

Yasuhiro Morimoto

Ayumi Itoh

Masahiro Kitamura

Nobuyuki Taniguchi

Masataka Hamada

Toshio Norita

Kenji Ishibashi

Hiroaki Kubo

Koichi Kamon

Daisaku Horie

Keizou Ochi

Yuji Taguchi

Hiroshi Nagashima

Keiichiro Bungo

Kazuki Akaho

Tetsuya Iida

Yuji Adachi

Shinichi Fuji

A digital camera is provided with a plurality of image-pickup modes to carry out an optimal controlling process in accordance with an image-pickup scene. With respect to mode selection settings, a switching can be made between a manual selection setting in which the user manually selects an image-pickup mode and an automatic selection setting which automatically discriminates each image-pickup scene, and selects a suitable image-pickup mode. In the case of the automatic selection setting in the mode selection setting, a limited value in comparison with a parameter value relating to the image quality set at the time of the manual selection setting is set as the parameter. As a result, even in the case of a misdiscrimination in an image-pickup scene, it is possible to provide a flawless image as the resulting image, and consequently to prevent serious degradation in the image quality.

Image-processing apparatus and image-quality control method

An image acquired by an image sensor is recorded, and the blur amount of the recorded image is changed in accordance with a blur amount determined beforehand.

Image capture device and method of controlling blur in captured images

An automatic focusing device capable of focus detection so that the in-focus state can be adequately realized, even if the magnification changes or a camera shake occurs. The sum total of the absolute values of the differences between two pixels in an evaluation area is calculated, the sum total of the square values of the differences between the two pixels in the evaluation area is calculated, and the evaluation value is obtained based on the sum total of the absolute values of the differences and the sum total of the square values of the differences to obtain the in-focus position of the taking lens.

Automatic focusing device, camera, and automatic focusing method

An image taking apparatus includes an image sensor which picks up an image of a photographic object and a selector which selects a first photographing mode or a second photographing mode and a controller. The second photographing mode is a mode for composing a plurality of picked-up images to create a composite image. The controller makes the image sensor pickup a photographic object image on the first photographing condition when the first photographing mode is selected by the selector, and makes the image sensor pick up a plurality of images of photographic objects on the second photographing condition different from said first photographing condition when the second photographing mode is selected by the selector.

Image taking apparatus

An image taking apparatus includes an image sensor which takes a plurality of images different in focal distance, a processor which creates a pan-focus image focused on each of different photographic objects from the plurality of images taken by the image sensor, a discriminator which discriminates whether or not it is appropriate to create the pan-focus image, and a controller which forbids the processor to create the pan-focus image when the discriminator discriminates that it is not appropriate to create the pan-focus image.

Image taking apparatus having focus control

An image capturing apparatus capable of performing a suitable illuminance nonuniformity correction by setting a suitable &ggr;-characteristic every block even in the case that the size of a character image projected on a sensing surface changes according to an image capturing magnification, and capable of extracting a boundary area between a white board portion and a background portion and applying a suitable image processing to this boundary area during the illuminance nonuniformity correction for a picked image, and capable of image capturing a representation such as characters drawn on a white board in such a manner that an obtained image is clear and easy to see by suitably performing an illuminance nonuniformity correction even in the case of color image capturing, and capable of detecting a regularly reflected light with high accuracy and can thereby securely prevent an error of obtaining an image of low quality by image capturing, and capable of preventing an error in flash-image capturing a representation such as characters drawn on a white board under insufficient illumination light and effectively perform an illuminance nonuniformity correction.

Image capturing apparatus having a &ggr;-characteristic corrector and/or image geometric distortion correction

In an image reading apparatus in which a document is read with scanning by a image pickup device, a height of the document and an outline of the document are detected. Based on the detected height and outline data, together with a calculating of a document size, an offset amount from a setting reference position of the document is calculated. Based on the calculations, the image is processed properly. Also, if the document is not placed correctly or a degree of an image distortion is not within a correctable range, an alarm is issued.

Image reading apparatus

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An image processing apparatus is provided with: a partial image data generator for generating a plurality of partial image data pertaining to a plurality of partial images of an object respectively, one partial image being partially overlapped another partial image in a boundary portion; a boundary image data generator for generating boundary image data pertaining to the boundary portion based on image data pertaining to the respective overlapped portions; and an image synthesizer for synthesizing the plurality of partial image data by way of the generated boundary image data to generate image data pertaining to a single image of the object.

Image processing apparatus for generating a single image of an object using overlapping partial images

An electronic camera adopts an image pickup and optical system of a mirror scan type in which a mirror for scanning is disposed at a forward side of a taking lens. A line image sensor relatively scans an object while rotating the mirror to perform photographing. When controlling the exposure, the taking lens is moved synchronously along with rotation of the mirror to adjust the focal position thereof each time a slender sub-image of the object is picked up by the CCD. Driving the taking lens to focus the sub-image each time of scanning the sub-image enables picking up an entirety of the object image perfectly in a focused state.

Image pickup apparatus

A color discriminating apparatus is provided with: a luminance calculator for calculating luminance information of a picked up color image based on image data of each of a plurality of color components constituting the color image; a color information calculator for calculating color information of the color image based on image data; a first discriminator for discriminating, based on calculated color information, which the color image is chromatic or achromatic; a second discriminator for discriminating, based on calculated luminance information, which the color image is black or white when the color image is discriminated to be achromatic; and a third discriminator for discriminating, based on the calculated color information and the calculated luminance information, which of a plurality of predetermined colors the color image agrees with when the color image is discriminated to be chromatic.

Color discrimination apparatus and method

An electronic camera is provided with an image pickup device for photoelectrically picking up a light image of an object to generate image data, an oblique angle information provider for providing information on an oblique angle between a sensing surface of the image pickup device and a surface of the object, a distance detector for detecting a distance to the object, and a corrector for correcting, based on the provided oblique angle information and the detected distance, the generated image data so as to produce a pseudo object image whose surface resides on a plane parallel with the sensing surface of the image pickup device.

Electronic camera with oblique view correction

A method and apparatus for pixel interpolation performed on color separated image data which is obtained from a Bayer array or like sensor. The slopes of pixel values are computed in two or more directions and pixel weight factors are calculated corresponding to these directions based on the computed slopes. The pixel weight factors are used in the pixel interpolation calculation to improve the interpolated result such as is necessary in the edge region of an image.

Pixel interpolation device and pixel interpolation method

An image reading apparatus which reads document surfaces of open book-like documents placed on a document platen in a face upward condition, the image reading apparatus comprises; a first detector which detects a height distribution of a document surface in a main scanning direction, a second detector which detects a height distribution of the document surface in a sub-scanning direction, and a direction discrimination device for discriminating whether a placement direction of the document is a main scanning direction or a sub-scanning direction based on the height distributions.

An image reading apparatus which reads document surfaces of open book-like documents placed on a document platen in a face upward condition and detects height of the document to control an image reading operation. An image reader reads the document platen on which the document is placed and outputs image data. A height detector detects height distribution of the document, and a discrimination device determines whether or not abnormalities occur in the height distribution of the document. A memory stores the height distribution of the document, and a update device updates the height distribution of the document stored in the memory when the abnormalities do not occur in the height distribution of the document. A correcting device corrects distortion of the image data caused by the height of the document in accordance with the height distribution of the document stored in the memory.

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Osakasayama, Japan

Noriyuki Okisu