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:
Feb. 16, 2010
Filed:
Apr. 27, 2007
Hisayuki Watanabe, Iwaki, JP;
Tsubasa Nomura, Iwaki, JP;
Hisayuki Watanabe, Iwaki, JP;
Tsubasa Nomura, Iwaki, JP;
Alpine Electronics, Inc., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A surrounding image generating apparatus changes a viewpoint of images around a vehicle, taken by multiple image pickup devices mounted at different positions along the vehicle, to generate a surrounding image of the areas around the vehicle viewed from a virtual viewpoint located above the vehicle. The surrounding image generating apparatus includes a metering area determining unit determining at least one overlapping area in which the shooting areas of the image pickup devices are overlapped with each other to be a metering area for at least part of the image pickup devices; an exposure calculating unit focusing metering on the metering area for the at least part of the image pickup devices to calculate an appropriate exposure of each of the image pickup devices; and a surrounding image generating unit generating the surrounding image by using image signals generated in accordance with the calculated exposures.