JPH0318186A - Telecamera - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve vertical resolution by branching light from an object, making it incident on 1st and 2nd solid-state image pickup elements, outputting and storing a video signal corresponding to odd and even number scanning lines and reading the signals alternately. CONSTITUTION:The light 2 branched from an object made incident to a prism resolution optical system 1 is branched into two systems and branched lights 3, 4 are made incident to solid-state image pickup elements 5, 6 respectively. The solid-state image pickup elements 5, 6 are arranged to the resolution optical system 1 so as to be deviated by one picture element pitch in the vertical direction. Only the light made incident to the photodetector of an odd or an even line is extracted from the solid-state image pickup element 5, 6 as a video signal. The extracted video signal is processed and written in memory circuits 12, 13. Each odd and even line of the written video signal is read alternately sequentially. Thus, the vertical resolution is improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION "Field of Industrial Application" This invention relates to a television camera, and particularly to a black and white television camera using a solid-state image sensor. ``Prior art and problems to be solved by the invention'' Conventional white television cameras have NTSC (El^) system or PAL (CC) system.
One CCD (Charg
eCoupled Device) type solid-state image sensor (
A CCD (hereinafter referred to as CCD) is used and driven by an interlaced scanning method, and video signals of odd and even fields are sequentially extracted. One screen (one frame image) is composed of these two fields of signals (field frequency is 60 tlz) (frame frequency is 3082). If you try to obtain a still image of a high-speed subject at a certain moment using such an interlace scanning camera, you will need to use either odd or even field video signals, so the vertical direction of the CCD This results in a rough screen with horizontal scanning lines that is approximately 1/2 of the number of pixels, for example 492, that is, a screen with a vertical resolution of 172 in the case of interlaced scanning. Even if you attempt to increase the vertical resolution by constructing one screen using two video signals, an odd field and an even field, the images in both fields are shifted by 1/60 seconds from each other, so you cannot observe high-speed development. It cannot be used if When a camera is constructed by driving the COD used above using a non-interlaced scanning method, the vertical resolution is determined by the number of stages of the vertical shift register of the CCD (approximately 172 pixels in the vertical direction), and therefore interlaced scanning is used. The resolution of a normal image is only about 172. As described above, in interlaced scanning or non-interlaced scanning TV cameras using conventional solid-state image sensors, the low vertical resolution of still images at the moment of high-speed development is a major problem in the fields of image processing and image measurement. It had become. The purpose of this invention is to provide a new black-and-white television camera that can develop at high speed and greatly improve the vertical resolution of a still image at a certain moment compared to conventional cameras. "Means for Solving the Problems" The television camera of the present invention includes a prism decomposition optical system that splits light from a subject into two systems, and one of the branched lights enters the camera to resolve the problem between a certain i#. a first solid-state imaging device that outputs a video signal corresponding to the odd-numbered rows of the scanning lines of the image; and a first solid-state image sensor that receives the other branched light and outputs a video signal that corresponds to the even-numbered rows of the scanning lines of the image. a second solid-state image sensor; and the first solid-state image sensor. A memory circuit is provided in which a video signal obtained from the second solid-state image sensor is written and one odd row and one even row of the written video signal fS are sequentially and alternately read out. ``Example'' An example of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. The light 2 from the subject that entered the prism resolving optical system l is
There, it is split equally into two directions, and those split lights 3 and 4
are incident on solid-state image sensors 5 and 6, respectively. The solid-state image sensor 5.6 has the same characteristics as the COD with the same structure.
(Charge Coupled Device
)-shaped elements, and are arranged vertically offset from each other by one pixel pitch with respect to the prism resolving optical system l, as shown in FIG. The solid-state image sensors 5 and 6 are driven by a drive circuit 7, and only the light incident on the light-receiving elements in odd-numbered rows (or even-numbered rows) is extracted as a video signal. Each video signal is sampled by a sampling circuit 8 or 9 and supplied to A/D conversion circuits IO and 11,
are converted into digital data and stored in the memory circuit 1.
Written in 2 and 13. The video signals written to the memory circuits 12 and 13 are transferred from the memory circuits 12 and 13 at the timing required for non-interlaced scanning, respectively.
The signals are sequentially read out alternately row by row, subjected to signal processing via the signal processing circuit 14, and then supplied to the output terminal 15.

Since the timings of the signal charges taken out from each light receiving element e of the solid-state image sensors 5 and 6 are all at the same time, the video signals written in the memory circuits 12 and 13 are image information at the same moment. The image signals for the I screen read out alternately from these memory circuits 12 and 13 are vertically different from the video signals of a conventional interlaced or non-interlaced camera using a single solid-state image sensor. It is a non-interlaced scanning video signal with twice the number of scanning lines and therefore twice the vertical resolution of the conventional one. In the explanation so far, it has been assumed that the solid-state image sensors 5 and 6 are arranged vertically with respect to the prism resolving optical system l, shifted by one pixel pin, but the present invention is not limited to this case. , the two elements may be arranged at similar physical positions with no deviation in pixel arrangement with respect to the prism resolving optical system l.

(However, as in the previous example, the video signals output from the two elements must be information at the same moment.) In this case, from either of the solid-state image sensors 5 and 6, the odd-numbered rows, Even-numbered rows of video signals are outputted from the other side and written to the memory circuits 12 and 13, respectively, and read out alternately and sequentially from each memory one row at a time. Note that l memory circuits may be used instead of the memory circuits 12 and 13.

"Effects of the Invention: In this invention, light from a subject is split into two, each branched light is incident on a separate solid-state image sensor, and one element is used to read the odd rows of screen information at a certain moment, and the even rows are is taken out as a video signal by the other element and stored in a memory circuit.Video signals of odd-numbered rows and even-numbered rows are sequentially and alternately read out row by row from the memory circuit.Therefore, according to the present invention,
A vertical resolution twice as high as that of a conventional interlaced scanning or non-interlaced scanning monochrome television camera using one solid-state image sensor is obtained. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 shows the solid-state image sensors 5 and 6 of FIG. 1 with respect to the prism resolving optical system l.
FIG. 3 is a pixel array diagram in which pixels are arranged so as to be shifted from each other by one pixel pitch in the vertical direction.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A prism separation optical system that splits the light from the subject into two systems; a second solid-state image sensor that receives the other branched light and outputs a video signal corresponding to an even-numbered scanning line of the image; and the first and second solid-state image sensors. A television camera comprising: a memory circuit that writes video signals obtained from the above and sequentially and alternately reads one odd row and one even row of the written video signals.