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:
Jan. 30, 2007
Filed:
Feb. 20, 2002
Yoshimi Koyama, Kanagawa, JP;
Tsukasa Yoshimura, Tokyo, JP;
Yoshimi Koyama, Kanagawa, JP;
Tsukasa Yoshimura, Tokyo, JP;
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A number of optical fiber cordsare bundled together to constitute an image fiber. A first end of the image fiberis incorporated within and covered by a cylindrical member to constitute an imaging section, which in turn forms one of a plurality of imaging sections. The second end of the image fiber is incorporated within a fiber bundling unit so that an image pickup device simultaneously read images captured by the plurality of imaging sections and transmitted to the image pickup device via optical means. Within the fiber bundling unit a plurality of cylindrical holes are provided, in an orderly fashion and in a lattice pattern, and into at least one cylindrical hole one end of the image fiber that forms an imaging section is inserted. All of the end faces of a plurality of image fibers are aligned in the same plane to thereby form a flattened surface. A plurality of imaging sections are radially disposed in a spherical and omnidirectional imaging unit, taking into account the latitude and longitude of the imaging sections. This allows omnidirectional images with no distortions to be transmitted to an image capture unit.