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:
May. 13, 2014
Filed:
Apr. 30, 2009
Koichi Kamon, Otokuni-gun, JP;
Jun Takayama, Tama, JP;
Koichi Kamon, Otokuni-gun, JP;
Jun Takayama, Tama, JP;
Konica Minolta Opto, Inc., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A luminance signal and a color information signal having high S/N ratios are generated by combining a visible luminance image component and an infrared image component at an appropriate ratio according to brightness of a subject such as brightness on a sunny day or brightness in darkness. An image pickup elementpicks up a ye image component Dye, an R image component DR, an infrared image component DBlk and a luminance image component DW. An evaluation value calculatorcalculates an evaluation value eDW and an evaluation value eDBlk by adding pixel values of the luminance image component DW and pixel values of the infrared image component DBlk in a local area, and calculates an evaluation value e (=eDW−eDBlk). A factor determinerdetermines weighting factors k, kw from the evaluation value e. A signal generatorweights the luminance image component by the weighting factor k, weights the visible luminance image component by the weighting factor kw, combines the luminance image component and the visible luminance image component to calculate a luminance signal dY, and also calculates color signals dR, dG and dB.