JP3483050B2 - Imaging device - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image pickup device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An image pickup apparatus is constructed so as to project an image to be picked up on a projection surface of an image pickup element via a coupling lens system.

In the image pickup device, photodiodes are arranged in a matrix on the projection surface thereof, and charges corresponding to the light intensity in each photodiode are taken out through a CCD formed on the projection surface and converted into, for example, a voltage. It is converted and output.

The output from such an image pickup device, that is, image pickup information is input to a display device, and the image pickup target image is displayed on the display surface thereof.

[0005]

However, since the image pickup apparatus having such a configuration has a limited number of photodiodes, for example, the image of the display apparatus displayed through the image pickup apparatus has a higher definition. In addition, there was an unavoidable restriction when trying to display in high quality.

That is, it has been pointed out that the amount of information obtained from the image pickup device is too small even if an attempt is made to display with high definition and high quality on the display device.

Therefore, the applicant of the present application has found that the image displayed on the display surface of the display device does not necessarily become the portion of interest to the observer in all cases, and there is always a portion of interest to the observer. It was found that the part is a part of the display image, and the above problems were solved.

Therefore, the present invention has been made based on such a circumstance, and an object thereof is an extremely high-definition and high-quality image in a portion which an observer wants to pay attention to, despite a small amount of information. An object of the present invention is to provide an imaging device that can obtain

[0009]

The outline of the representative ones of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.

Means 1. A repositioning optical system that can input a divided image to be captured and can set a portion for which the resolution is desired to be higher and a portion for which the resolution is desired to be reduced among the respective divided images, and the resolution among the images from this relocation optical system. An optical system that transmits an image of a portion for which high resolution is desired to a high-magnification lens and an image of a portion for which resolution is desired to be reduced to a low-magnification lens, an image sensor that projects an image from this optical system, and this image sensor And an image reconstructing device for reconstructing the image information from the image reconstructing device based on the information of the partial setting in the repositioning optical system.

Means 2. In the configuration described in the above means 1,
The setting of the portion for which the resolution is desired to be increased and the portion for which the resolution is desired to be reduced in the rearrangement optical system is characterized in that an input means that can be performed after confirming the display of the display device is provided.

Means 3. In the configuration described in the above means 1,
It is characterized in that the input surface of the image to be picked up in the rearrangement optical system is provided with means capable of changing at least one of an angle of view and an image pickup method of each of the divided images.

Means 4. The rearrangement optical system that divides and inputs the image to be captured, and the image from this rearrangement optical system is transmitted through the high-magnification lens while the image of the portion whose resolution is to be increased is transmitted through the high-magnification lens. An optical system that transmits light through a lens of magnification, an image pickup device that projects an image from this optical system, and image reconstruction that reconstructs image information from this image pickup device based on partial setting information in the rearrangement optical system. And an analysis unit configured to analyze each spatial frequency of the divided images input to the rearrangement optical system, and a portion of the image whose resolution is desired to be high and a resolution which is low based on the analysis information of the division unit. A control means for setting a desired portion by the repositioning optical system is provided.

[0014]

In the image pickup apparatus configured as in the above means 1, first, the imaged object image is transmitted by the rearrangement optical system, and the image portion for which the spatial resolution is desired to be increased is transmitted through the optical system having a high magnification. The image part where you want to lower the spatial resolution is transmitted through an optical system with low magnification,
The image is projected on the image pickup surface of the image pickup device.

Here, in the rearrangement optical system, it is possible to freely set a portion of the image for which the resolution is desired to be high and a portion for which the resolution is desired to be low.

Therefore, even if the spatial resolution of the image pickup surface of the image pickup device is constant, the image portion which is enlarged and projected can obtain high resolution information, and the image portion which is reduced and projected is obtained. Will provide lower resolution information.

Therefore, when the image is reconstructed based on such information, it is possible to obtain an image with high resolution in a desired image portion and an image with low resolution in other image areas. Become.

Therefore, it is possible to obtain an extremely high-definition and high-quality image in a portion that the observer wants to pay attention to, despite the small amount of information.

According to the image pickup apparatus having the above-mentioned means 2, it becomes possible to arbitrarily select a portion of the displayed image which is desired to have high definition and high quality.

According to the image pickup apparatus configured as the above means 3, an arbitrary image pickup object image can be selected from a wide range of image pickup objects, and a high-definition and high-quality image can be obtained in a portion to be noticed of this image pickup object image. You will be able to get it.

According to the image pickup apparatus constructed as the above-mentioned means 4, for example, only a moving image pickup object can be automatically made to follow the movement and displayed in high definition and high quality.

[0022]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the image pickup apparatus according to the present invention will be described below.

Example 1. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an embodiment of an image pickup apparatus according to the present invention.

In the figure, first, there is an image pickup object 104, and light rays 105 from this image pickup object 104 are made incident on respective independent windows (channels) of the rearrangement optical system 101.

This rearrangement optical system 101 is shown in FIG.
It is composed of the spatial light switch shown in.

This spatial light switch will be described in detail later,
It has an optical system that divides the input image into a plurality (n: for example, 16 for convenience of description) corresponding to each window . This place
In this case, the image to be picked up is set for each window of the spatial light switch.
Input the target image from different directions, and
The image to be picked up is a part corresponding to the window from the information of the direction.
Can be obtained. Then, with another optical system that rearranges each input image divided by this optical system
Is configured.

In this case, the image input to the window of the spatial light switch is, for example, as shown in FIG. 2A, and as apparent from the figure, it is divided into 16 image portions. Has become.

The rearrangement of the input image in the rearrangement optical system 101 is controlled by the rearrangement optical system controller 111 in the controller 110, for example, based on stereoscopic measurement information (not shown) of the imaged object 104. ing.

Then, the respective output images rearranged by the rearrangement optical system 101 are respectively formed in the image forming optical system 102.
An image is formed on the image pickup surface of the image pickup element 103 via the -1 to 102-n.

Imaging optical systems 102-1 to 102-n
Is composed of, for example, independent lenses, and their magnifications are preset and arranged.

The projected image on the image sensor 103 in this case is as shown in FIG. 2B, for example. As is clear from this figure, the image sensor 103 is composed of 64 cells, so that a part to be imaged can take in a lot of information about it, and other parts have little information. It can be imported.

Information from the image pickup device 103 is stored in the memory device 112 and is also input to the image reconstructing device 113.

In the image reconstructing device 113, the inverse conversion of the division and rearrangement made by the repositioning optical system 101 is performed based on the information from the repositioning optical system control device 111. The information that has been inversely converted is input to the monitor 114.

The monitor 114 is shown in FIG.
The image as shown in (c) is displayed. The image in this case is displayed with higher resolution in the part of the target image than in the other parts.

In the above-mentioned embodiment, the number of windows of the rearrangement optical system 101 has been described as 16. However, for example, the number of windows of the rearrangement optical system 101 is as shown in FIG. Needless to say, the number may be 64, and the number may be more than that.

Further, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the control of the rearrangement optical system control device 111 to the rearrangement optical system 101 is performed on the basis of stereoscopic measurement information (not shown), but the present invention is not limited to this. Of course not. For example, the rearrangement optical system 101 may be manually and interactively controlled using the input unit 115 via the rearrangement optical system control unit. In this case, high resolution imaging can be performed in a predetermined portion.

In the image pickup apparatus having the above-described structure, first, the image to be picked up is transmitted by the rearrangement optical system, and the image portion whose spatial resolution is desired to be increased is transmitted through the optical system having a high magnification. The image portion to be lowered is projected on the image pickup surface of the image pickup device by transmitting it through an optical system having a low magnification.

Here, in the rearrangement optical system, it is possible to freely set a portion for which the resolution is desired to be high and a portion for which the resolution is desired to be lowered in the image.

Therefore, even if the spatial resolution of the image pickup surface of the image pickup device is constant, the image portion which is enlarged and projected can obtain high resolution information, and the image portion which is reduced and projected is obtained. Will provide lower resolution information.

Therefore, when an image is reconstructed based on such information, it is possible to obtain an image with high resolution in a desired image portion and an image with low resolution in other image areas. Become.

Therefore, it is possible to obtain an extremely high-definition and high-quality image in a portion that the observer wants to pay attention to, despite the small amount of information.

Example 2. FIG. 4 is a main part configuration diagram showing another embodiment of the image pickup apparatus according to the present invention.

In the figure, the structure which is particularly different from that of FIG.
The optical path changing means 220-1 to 220-n are arranged on the surface of the rearrangement optical system 101 on the imaging target side so as to correspond to the windows.

The optical path changing means 220-1 to 220
-N is composed of, for example, a mirror, a prism (optical path changing means), a zoom lens, a concave lens and a convex lens.

The optical path changing means 220 configured as described above
-1 to 220-n can change the angle of view and the direction of the incident image, respectively, so that the information of the angle of view over a wide range can be sequentially captured by the control of the rearrangement optical system 201. become able to.

Therefore, not only one image can be picked up, but also a plurality of independent images can be picked up at the same time.

[0047] In this case, it can simultaneously captured multiple images from various directions, further the imaging magnification and the like of each image, interactively be manipulated by controlling the rearrangement optical space switch 201, thus shooting ZoSo This has the effect of expanding the application range of the storage device.

Example 3. FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram showing another embodiment of the image pickup apparatus according to the present invention.

In the figure, 301 is a rearrangement optical system, 3
0 2-1 is to 3 0 2-n are independent imaging optical system, in the drawing has a n = 16. Further, 303 is an image sensor, 311 is a rearrangement optical system control device, 312 is an image memory, 313 is an image reconstruction device, and 314 is a monitor.

The incident light 304 is split into two optical paths 305 and 306 by the half mirror 307, and the incident light on the optical path 306 is imaged on the spatial frequency analyzer 321 via the imaging lens 308. ing.

This spatial frequency analyzing device 321 is composed of a sub-spatial frequency analyzing device 322 having the same number of windows as the windows of the rearrangement optical system 301, and determines whether the spatial frequency of the divided image of any window is high. It is designed to analyze.

Then, such analysis information is fed back to the rearrangement optical system control device 311.

That is, as shown in FIG. 6A, the control method of the rearrangement optical system 301 is determined by the magnitude of the integrated value of the component whose reference spatial frequency of each image is higher than f1. . As shown in FIG. 6B, when the image of the divided image number i has the highest spatial frequency component,
The rearrangement optical system 301 is controlled so that the divided image is transmitted through the magnifying optical system having the highest magnification. Similarly, the transmitted image-forming optical systems 302-1 to 302- are arranged in the order of components having higher spatial frequencies of the divided images.
The rearrangement optical system 301 is controlled by sequentially increasing the magnification of n.

In the rearrangement optical system control device 311, based on the information from the spatial frequency analysis device 321, an image having a high spatial frequency is transmitted through the expansion optical system, and an image having a low spatial frequency is transmitted through the reduction optical system. The rearrangement optical system 301 is rearranged so as to be transmitted.

Then, this series of rearrangement operations is performed at certain fixed time intervals. By setting this time interval to about 60 times per second, it becomes possible to sufficiently cope with a moving image having normal movement.

On the other hand, the incident light 305 separated on the other optical path 305 is divided into n divided images by the rearrangement optical system 301 and further rearranged.

[0057] Thus rearranged image, the imaging element 303 to the imaging optical system 302 - not through the 3 0 2-n
Is imaged on.

The image formed on the image pickup device 303 is converted into an electric signal by the image pickup device 303 and stored in the image memory 312. And
This image information is reconstructed by the image reconstructing device 313 and output to the monitor 314.

Example 4. FIG. 7A is a configuration diagram showing another embodiment of the spatial frequency analyzer described in the third embodiment. This spatial frequency analyzing apparatus corresponds to the sub spatial frequency analyzing apparatus 322 in FIG.

In FIG. 7A, laser light source 403
The coherent laser light from is converted into parallel light by the collimator lens 404, the optical path is further changed by the mirror 405 and the half mirror 406, and is incident on one surface of the liquid crystal phase modulation type spatial modulator 411. Has become.

The liquid crystal phase modulation type spatial modulator 411 is
From the laser light incident side, the transparent electrode 410 and the liquid crystal layer 4
09, a mirror 408, and a photoconductive film 407 are sequentially laminated, and a constant voltage is applied between the photoconductive film 407 and the transparent electrode 410 by an AC power supply 412.

On the other hand, the liquid crystal phase modulation type spatial modulator 41.
The incident light 413 of the image to be analyzed is incident on the surface opposite to the laser light incident side of No. 1, and the intensity distribution thereof causes the resistance value of the photoconductive film 407 to be spatial. The voltage applied to the liquid crystal layer 409 is modulated.

Since the liquid crystal layer 409 has a property that the refractive index changes depending on the applied voltage, the incident light 41
A phase modulation image corresponding to the intensity distribution of No. 3 can be formed on the liquid crystal layer 409.

Therefore, the liquid crystal phase modulation type spatial modulator 41
The laser light incident on the No. 1 is phase-modulated in the image pattern corresponding to the intensity distribution of the incident light 413.

The phase-modulated laser light is Fourier transformed by the Fourier transform lens 401 and projected onto the image pickup element 402. Since this projection image is a Fourier transform image of the image of the incident light 413,
As such, it is a spatial frequency distribution image.

Then, this image is detected by the image pickup element 402 and analyzed by the control device 420, so that the distribution of the spatial frequency is detected.

Here, the Fourier transform image projected on the image pickup element 402 is as shown in FIG. 7B.

In the figure, the image pickup element 402 has a circular hole in the center thereof, and the region (hatched portion) excluding the hole is a region where light can be detected. It is shown that the spatial frequency increases as the distance from the center of the hole increases, and the radius of the hole corresponds to the spatial frequency f1.

Since the Fourier transform image 430 is projected so as to be superimposed on the area where the hole is formed, when there is a projected portion that exceeds the radius of the hole, the spatial frequency of the image of the incident light 413 is changed. The integrated value of the component higher than the value of f1 can be instantly detected.

In this case, the image pickup element 402 does not necessarily need to be provided with holes, and may be a general array element. However, in this case, it goes without saying that it is necessary to add an integrating means in order to instantaneously detect the integrated value of a component exceeding a certain spatial frequency.

Regarding such a spatial frequency analyzer, for example, optical, Vo. 23, No. 5, pp
315-320, 1994, "Optical correlation system using phase modulation type spatial light modulator, Haruyoshi Toyota, Narihiro Yoshida, Naohisa Kosaka, Yuji Kobayashi, Tsutomu Hara".

According to the image pickup apparatus shown in each of the above-described embodiments, the image including the image pickup object is first transmitted by the rearrangement optical system so that the image portion whose spatial resolution is desired to be increased is transmitted through the optical system having a high magnification. In addition, an image portion for which the spatial resolution is desired to be lowered is transmitted through an optical system having a low magnification so as to be projected on the image pickup surface of the image pickup device.

Here, the rearrangement optical system can freely and manually set a portion of the image for which the resolution is desired to be high and a portion for which the resolution is desired to be lowered.

Therefore, even if the spatial resolution of the image pickup surface of the image pickup device is constant, high-resolution information can be obtained from the enlarged and projected image portion, and the reduced and projected image portion is obtained. Will provide lower resolution information.

Therefore, when an image is reconstructed based on such information, it is possible to obtain an image with high resolution in a desired image portion and an image with low resolution in other image areas. Become.

Therefore, it is possible to obtain an extremely high-definition and high-quality image in a portion that the observer wants to pay attention to, despite the small amount of information.

FIG. 8A is a schematic diagram showing an embodiment of the repositioning optical system, and FIG. 8B is an equivalent diagram thereof.

For simplification of description, the figure illustrates a 4-input 4-output type. 501 is a liquid crystal spatial modulator, 502 is a polarization beam splitter array, and incident light (linearly polarized light) is incident on 503 to 506. Reference numerals 507 to 510 denote emitted light (linearly polarized light). Reference numeral 513-1 shows the arrangement of liquid crystal molecules in the twisted state, and reference numeral 513-1 shows the arrangement of liquid crystal molecules in the homeotropic state.

In the twist state of 513-1, the incident polarized light is rotated by 90 °, and in the homeotropic state of 513-2,
The incident polarized light is transmitted as it is.

As is apparent from the figure, the incident light has a polarization beam splitter array 502 depending on its polarization direction.
The optical path can be changed inside.

In FIG. 11B, a switch element 511 corresponds to the liquid crystal spatial light modulator.
Reference numeral 12 denotes a routing element corresponding to the polarization beam splitter array.

FIG. 9 shows 128 inputs 12 when using polarization multiplexing.
It is a block diagram which shows the Example of the rearrangement optical system of 8 outputs. The figure (a) is a top view and the figure (b) is a side view. An operation similar to that of the above-mentioned rearrangement optical system is performed, 521 is a liquid crystal spatial light modulator, 522 is a light beam splitter array,
Reference numeral 30 denotes incident light and 531 denotes outgoing light.

A spatial optical switch constituting such a rearrangement optical system is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-3500.
No. 8, which is described in detail.

[0084]

As is apparent from the above description,
According to the imaging device of the present invention, it is possible to obtain an extremely high-definition and high-quality image in a portion that the observer wants to pay attention to, despite a small amount of information.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an embodiment of an image pickup apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram for explaining an operation of the image pickup apparatus shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram for explaining another embodiment to the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a schematic configuration diagram showing another embodiment of the image pickup apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram showing another embodiment of the image pickup apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram for explaining an operation of the image pickup apparatus shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram for explaining another embodiment to the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 8 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an embodiment of a rearrangement optical system applied to an image pickup apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a schematic configuration diagram showing another embodiment of the rearrangement optical system.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 ... Rearrangement optical system, 102 ... Imaging optical system, 103 ...
Image pickup device, 104 ... Imaging target, 111 ... Rearrangement optical system control device, 112 ... Image memory, 113 ... Image reconstruction device, 115 ... Input means.

Front page continuation (72) Inventor Masamichi Okamura 1-1-6 Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Inside Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (56) Reference JP-A-6-35008 (JP, A) JP-A-2-260782 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04N 5/335 H04N 5/222-5/257

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A rearrangement optical system including a spatial light switch having a plurality of input sections and an output section, and a plurality of optical paths arranged at respective input sections of the rearrangement optical system and having respective predetermined incident directions. Conversion means, a plurality of imaging optical systems arranged at respective output parts of the repositioning optical system and set to a predetermined magnification, and a plurality of inputs determined by the incident direction to the repositioning optical system The input corresponding to the image of the part with high resolution is output to the high-magnification imaging optical system and transmitted, and the input corresponding to the image of the part with low resolution is output to the low-magnification imaging optical system and transmitted. A rearrangement optical system control means for controlling the rearrangement optical system, an image pickup device onto which an image from the plurality of imaging optical systems is projected, and image information from the image pickup device is controlled by the rearrangement optical system. Based on information Imaging device characterized by comprising the image reconstruction means for reconstructing Te. 2. The image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein a portion of the reconstructed image having a higher resolution and a portion having a lower resolution can be set with respect to the rearrangement optical system control means. An image pickup apparatus comprising: 3. The image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein the spatial frequency analyzing means comprises sub-spatial frequency analyzing means of the same number and arrangement corresponding to the input section of the rearrangement optical system, and the spatial frequency analyzing means. An image forming lens for forming an image of incident light is provided, and the spatial frequency analyzing unit corresponds to each input unit of the rearrangement optical system by analyzing an image formed by the image forming lens by the sub spatial frequency analyzing unit. Configured to obtain analysis information of the spatial frequency of each image, the relocation optical system control means, based on the analysis information of the spatial frequency analysis means, the space among the plurality of inputs to the relocation optical system. The input corresponding to the image of the high frequency part is output to the high-magnification imaging optical system and transmitted, and the input corresponding to the image of the low spatial frequency part is output to the low-magnification coupling optical system. An imaging device configured to control the rearrangement optical system so as to transmit light.