The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 17, 2001
Filed:
Jun. 30, 1999
Shinichi Maehama, Osaka, JP;
Kenji Nakamura, Sakai, JP;
Minolta Co., Ltd., Osaka, JP;
Abstract
A camera has a distance-measuring device, which has an area sensor for sensing the light from an object to convert it into an electrical signal, a posture detector for detecting the posture of the camera, a setter for setting the positions and sizes of a plurality of calculation regions demarcated on the light-sensing surface of the area sensor in accordance with an output from the posture detector, and a calculator for calculating the distance to the object based on an output from the area sensor that corresponds to the calculation regions set by the setter. The setter can be so controlled as to set the sizes of the calculation regions for distance calculation according to the size of the object that is likely to be detected in those calculation regions. This reduces possibility of low contrast and foreground/background interference, and thereby enhances distance measurement accuracy.