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. 31, 2012
Filed:
May. 10, 2007
Tomokuni Iijima, Osaka, JP;
Katsumi Imada, Nara, JP;
Satoshi Tamaki, Osaka, JP;
Panasonic Corporation, Osaka, JP;
Abstract
The present invention includes: a plurality of lens portions, each having at least one lens; a plurality of image pickup regions which are provided to correspond to the lens portions, respectively, and each of which has a light receiving surface substantially perpendicular to a direction of an optical axis of the corresponding lens portion; an image pickup signal input portionwhich receives image pickup signals generated by the image pickup regions; a transfer range determining portionwhich determines a transfer range of the image pickup signals transferred from the image pickup regions to the image pickup signal input portion; an image pickup region driving portionwhich drives the image pickup regions such that the image pickup signals corresponding to the transfer range determined by the transfer range determining portionare transferred to the image pickup signal input portion; and a parallax calculating portionwhich calculates a parallax based on the image pickup signals transferred to the image pickup signal input portion, and the transfer range determining portionswitches between a first operating mode in which the image pickup signals generated by at least two image pickup regions of the plurality of image pickup regions are determined as the transfer range and a second operating mode in which the image pickup signals different from those of the first operating mode are determined as the transfer range.