JPH09186917A - Image pickup device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow an image pickup element to convert object images with plural sets of magnification simultaneously into electric information. SOLUTION: A light beam from an object is collected through an objective lens 1 and split into plural optical paths by an optical path split means 2 such as a half mirror. The split light beams pass through lenses 3, 4 on each optical path and since the focal length of the lenses 3, 4 differ depending on the optical path, an object image with different magnification is given to the image pickup elements 5, 6 on each optical path and they convert the object image with different magnification into electric information, which is outputted. Furthermore, since the image of the rays passes through the lenses 3, 4 with different focal length and is formed on the image pickup elements 5, 6 by using an optical path changeover means such as a switching mirror to have only to change the optical path of the ray collected by the objective lens 1, each of the image pickup elements 5, 6 outputs each object image with a different focal length as an electric signal.

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 for picking up a light ray from a subject such as a surrounding state and an object to obtain electric information, for example, an image pickup device used as a surveillance camera or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an image pickup apparatus has been used in which light rays from a subject are collected by a lens, a subject image having a certain magnification is formed on the subject, and the subject image is converted into electrical information. This image pickup device includes those shown in FIGS. 5 (a) and 5 (b). The fixed-magnification image pickup apparatus shown in FIG. 5A includes an objective lens 11 and a CCD (charge
coupled device) 12, and a light beam from a subject is condensed by the objective lens 11 to form an image on the light receiving surface of the CCD 12. Therefore, a subject image with a magnification determined by the objective lens is formed on the light receiving surface,
The CCD 12 converts the subject image into electrical information.

An image pickup apparatus with a zoom shown in FIG. 5B is shown in FIG.
The image pickup apparatus shown in (1) further includes a lens 13 having a zoom function, and the zoom lens 13 can change a subject image to a plurality of magnifications and connect it to the light receiving surface of the CCD 12. Therefore, the light receiving surface of the CCD 12 is formed with a subject image of any one of a plurality of magnifications.
2 converts the subject image into electrical information.

[0004]

For example, when the image pickup device is connected to a display means such as a display and used as a surveillance camera, not only an image of the whole place to be monitored but also a person present at that place is to be monitored. It is necessary to simultaneously display the enlarged image such as "" on the display means. As described above, when a plurality of images with different magnifications are required at the same time, electrical information including a plurality of image data with different magnifications is required at the same time for displaying on a display or the like. On the other hand, when the conventional image pickup device is used, regardless of whether it is a fixed-magnification image pickup device or an image pickup device with zoom, the image pickup device is necessary for the number of necessary electric information. There have been problems such as requiring a lot of places to install the devices and increasing the cost of purchasing a plurality of imaging devices. Furthermore, it has been necessary to perform a complicated work of positioning these image pickup devices so that they can pick up the same subject so as to be imaged with each other.

In some cases, it is possible to satisfy the requirement if the images can be switched and obtained without simultaneously obtaining images having different magnifications. In such a case, the same problem as described above occurs in the conventional fixed-magnification image pickup device, but the above problem does not occur in the zoomed image pickup device. However, in the image pickup apparatus with zoom, the drive mechanism of the lens that constitutes the zoom mechanism is complicated and expensive. It costs a lot of money to meet the above requirements, and further,
There has been a problem that the image magnification cannot be switched quickly unless a zoom mechanism which is quite expensive and expensive is used.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional circumstances, and an image pickup apparatus capable of simultaneously obtaining subject images of a plurality of magnifications as electric information, and an object image of a plurality of magnifications with a relatively simple structure can be obtained. An object of the present invention is to provide an imaging device that can be obtained as information and that can quickly switch the magnification of a subject image.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, an image pickup device according to a first aspect of the present invention collects light rays from an object by an objective lens and forms an object image formed by the light rays by an image pickup element. In an image pickup device for converting into electrical information, a plurality of image pickup elements are provided, and an optical path splitting means for splitting a light beam collected by the objective lens to guide each image pickup element to an optical path from the objective lens to each image pickup element is further provided. It is characterized in that lenses having different focal lengths are provided in each optical path from the optical path splitting means to each image pickup device, and the magnification of the image formed on the light receiving surface of the image pickup device is made different between the image pickup devices.

According to the above-mentioned image pickup apparatus, the light rays from the subject are collected by passing through the objective lens and split into a plurality of optical paths by the optical path splitting means such as a half mirror. The divided rays pass through the lens in each optical path, and the focal length of the lens is different depending on the optical path, so the subject image with different magnification is formed on the image sensor of each optical path, and each image sensor has different magnification. The subject image is converted into electrical information and output.

An image pickup apparatus according to a second aspect of the present invention is an image pickup apparatus in which light rays from a subject are collected by an objective lens and a subject image formed by the light rays is converted into electrical information by an image pickup element. At the same time, an optical path switching means is provided in the optical path from the objective lens to each image pickup element to switch the optical path of the light rays collected by the objective lens to lead to any one of the image pickup elements. Further, each optical path from the optical path switch means to each image pickup element It is characterized in that lenses having different focal lengths are provided therein, and the magnification of the image formed on the light receiving surface of the image pickup device is changed by switching the optical path by the switching means.

According to the above image pickup device, the light rays from the subject are collected through the objective lens, and the optical path is switched by the optical path switching means such as a switching mirror. Then, the light ray passes through the lens, and because the focal length of the lens differs depending on the optical path, an image of the subject with different magnification is formed on the image sensor depending on the optical path, and the image sensor converts the formed image of the subject to electrical information. Output.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of an image pickup apparatus according to claim 1 of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 shows the configuration of the image pickup apparatus. The above-mentioned image pickup device is an objective lens 1 that collects light rays from a subject in the image pickup device.
An optical path splitting means 2 for splitting light rays collected by the objective lens 1, lenses 3 and 4 having different focal lengths, and image pickup elements 5 and 6 for converting a subject image into electrical information.

The optical path splitting means 2 is composed of a half mirror and is installed at a certain angle with respect to the optical axis of the objective lens. The light rays collected by the objective lens 1 are collected by the optical path splitting means 2, for example. It is divided into a light ray that is transmitted and a light ray that is reflected, having a component that is substantially the same as that of the reflected light ray. Then, the transmitted light ray and the reflected light ray serve as optical paths for traveling to the image pickup devices 5 and 6, respectively.

The lenses 3 and 4 are arranged at a constant distance from the image pickup devices 5 and 6 so that the light rays form an image on the light receiving surfaces of the image pickup devices 5 and 6. Further, the lens 3 has a focal length larger than that of the lens 4, so that the magnification of the subject image formed through the lens 3 is larger than that of the lens 4.

The image pickup devices 5 and 6 form a light receiving surface which receives light from the CCD device and converts it into electric information, and converts a subject image formed on the light receiving surface by the lenses 3 and 4 into electric information. In this embodiment, the image pickup devices 5 and 6 have the same size and the same performance, but the image pickup device 5 for converting an image having a large magnification has a larger number of pixels than the other image pickup devices 6. Preferably.

When the electric information converted by the image pickup devices 5 and 6 is output to the display means (not shown), a subject image can be displayed on the display means. At this time, the larger the magnification of the subject image formed on the light receiving surface of the image sensor, the more detailed the subject image can be converted into electrical information, and the subject can be displayed larger when connected to the display means. That is, in this embodiment, when the electric information from the image sensor 5 is displayed on the display unit, the subject is larger than when the electric information from the image sensor 6 is displayed, and the details of the subject are clear.

Note that the top, bottom, left, and right of the subject image formed on the image pickup element may differ from the subject depending on the condition of the optical path, that is, when reflected, the left, right, top, or bottom,
When the light passes through the lens, the upper, lower, left, and right may be different between the light beam before and after the light beam is reflected or passed, and thus the up and down and left and right of the subject and the subject image may be different. Therefore, in the image pickup device, the scanning of the image pickup element is reversed and the output of the image is reversed, and the electric information is output so that the image displayed on the display unit matches the original subject vertically and horizontally. . Therefore, when the display means is connected to the image pickup device, an image in which the subject is vertically and horizontally matched is output to the display means.

Next, the operation of the image pickup apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. The objective lens 1 collects light rays from a subject, and the optical path of the collected light rays is split by the optical path splitting means 2 into an optical path passing through the optical path splitting means 2 and an optical path reflecting the light. The light beam guided to the former optical path passes through the lens 3 to form a subject image on the light receiving surface of the image pickup device 5, and the image pickup device 5 forming the subject image converts the subject image into electrical information and outputs it. At the same time, the light beam guided to the latter optical path passes through the lens 4 to form a subject image on the light receiving surface of the image sensor 6, and the image sensor 6 that has formed the subject image converts the subject image into electrical information. Output. At this time, the focal length of the lens 3 is larger than that of the lens 4, and the magnification of the subject image formed by the image sensor 5 is larger than that of the image sensor 6, so that the image sensor 5 has a higher magnification than the image sensor 6. Outputs electrical information that is large and the details of the subject image are more detailed.

As described above, in the image pickup apparatus according to the first aspect, it is possible to simultaneously convert the object images having different magnifications into electrical information, and when converting the electrical information, the details of the object are also detailed. Convert to. It should be noted that a clear subject image may not be obtained on the light receiving surfaces of the image pickup devices 5 and 6 depending on the position of the subject, but in this case, the lens 3,
A clear subject image can be formed on the image pickup device by adjusting the positions of the image pickup device 4 and the image pickup devices 5 and 6. Further, in the above embodiment, one optical path splitting means 2 is provided to divide the optical path into two, but by combining a plurality of optical path splitting means 2 to configure an imaging device, the optical path can be split into a plurality of optical paths. It is possible to equip each optical path with a lens having a different focal length and an image sensor, and simultaneously form object images with different magnifications on each image sensor to convert object images of multiple magnifications into electrical information. .

The objective lens 1 and the lenses 3 and 4 are
Not only a single lens but also multiple lenses can be used in combination, and a lens with a zoom function can also be used. In this case, multiple object images with a wide range of magnification can be simultaneously converted into electrical information. Can be converted.
Further, the image pickup devices 5 and 6 are not limited to the same ones, and even if the image pickup devices having different sizes or the different numbers of pixels are used, subject images having different magnifications are converted into electrical information in each image pickup device. Can be converted.

Next, a surveillance camera system using the image pickup apparatus according to claim 1 will be described with reference to FIG. In this surveillance camera system, a plurality of image pickup devices S, a magnifying display unit 7 that magnifies and displays a subject, a normal display unit 8 that magnifies and displays a subject, and a magnified display screen. Enlarged screen selecting means 9 for selecting a subject to be displayed with
And an image pickup element connecting the high-magnification subject images of the respective image pickup devices S is connected to the enlargement display means 7 via the enlargement screen selection means 9, and the low-magnification subject images of the respective image pickup devices S are connected. The image pickup device 6 to be connected is connected to the normal display means 8.

The low-magnification subject images A to C output from the respective image pickup devices S are displayed on the normal display means 8 at the same time by dividing one display screen as shown in FIG. 2 (b). At the same time, the high-magnification subject image captured by the image capturing apparatus S selected by the enlargement screen selection unit 9 is simultaneously displayed on the enlargement display unit 7. In addition, in FIG. 2 (C),
The display contents of the enlargement display means 7 when the subject A is selected by the enlargement screen selection means 9 are shown.

Therefore, a low-magnification subject image and a high-magnification subject image of the same subject can be monitored at the same time. For example, a part of the subject can be enlarged while viewing the entire subject, which is effective. Various monitoring becomes possible.

An embodiment of the image pickup apparatus according to claim 2 of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The same parts as those of the image pickup apparatus according to claim 1 shown in FIG. 1 are designated by the same reference numerals, and the description thereof will be omitted. An image pickup apparatus according to claim 2 is an objective lens 1 for condensing a light beam from a subject into the image pickup apparatus, and an objective lens 1.
Optical path switching means 10 for switching the optical path of the light beam condensed by
And lenses 3 and 4 having different focal lengths, and image pickup devices 5 and 6 for converting a subject image into electrical information.

The optical path switching means 10 is composed of an optical path changing section such as a mirror or a prism, and a driving section for driving the optical path changing section. The driving section drives the optical path changing section so that the objective lens 1 collects the light. The selected light beam is switched to and guided to either the image pickup device 5 or the image pickup device 6.

According to the above image pickup device, for example, when electrical information is required to display a high-magnification subject image,
The light rays collected by the objective lens 1 are guided to the optical path to the image sensor 5 by the optical path switching means 10. And
This light ray passes through the lens 3 and forms a high-magnification subject image on the light-receiving surface of the image sensor 5, and this subject image is converted into electrical information by the image sensor 5 and output. Further, when electrical information is required to display a low-magnification subject image, the optical path switching means 10 switches the optical path of the light rays collected by the objective lens 1 to the image pickup device 6. As a result, the light beam whose optical path is switched passes through the lens 4 and the image sensor 6
A low-magnification subject image is formed on the light-receiving surface of and converted into electrical information.

As described above, in the image pickup apparatus according to the second aspect of the present invention, by simply switching the optical path from the objective lens 1 to the image pickup device 5 or 6 by the optical path switching means 10 having a simple structure, a subject image having a plurality of magnifications can be obtained. It can be obtained as electrical information from the image sensor. Further, since the switching of the optical path is performed only by rotating the mirror or the like of the optical path switching means 10 by 90 degrees, for example, electrical information having different magnifications can be quickly switched and obtained. In addition, by forming the lenses 3 and 4 with lenses having a zoom function, it is possible to convert a subject image having a wider range of magnification into electrical information. In addition, three or more sets of lenses and image pickup devices may be provided so that the light path can be switched and guided to each image pickup device by the optical path switching means.
Furthermore, a lot of electrical information with a lot of different magnifications can be obtained.

[0027]

As described above, in the image pickup apparatus provided with the optical path splitting means according to the present invention, the light rays collected by the objective lens are split into a plurality of optical paths by the optical path splitting means, and the split light rays are divided into individual light paths. Since the subject images are formed on the image pickup devices of the respective optical paths by passing through the lenses having different magnifications in the optical path, each image pickup device can simultaneously convert the subject images having different magnifications into electrical information and output it. Therefore, when a plurality of pieces of electrical information are needed at the same time, a plurality of imaging devices are not required, the number of places where the imaging devices are installed can be reduced, and the cost of purchasing a plurality of imaging devices can be reduced. Further, in the image pickup apparatus including the optical path switching means according to the present invention,
The light path collected by the objective lens is switched by the optical path switching means, and the object image can be formed on the image sensor through the lenses having different focal lengths in this optical path. It is possible to output electrical information of different subject images. Therefore, it is possible to convert the subject images of a plurality of magnifications into electrical information with a relatively simple structure such as an optical path switching means, and the magnification of the subject image can be converted by switching the optical path switching means, so that the magnification can be converted. Can be done quickly.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a surveillance camera system using the image pickup apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of an image pickup apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a conventional imaging device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Objective lens, 2 ... Optical path splitting means, 3, 4 ...
.Lens, 5, 6 ... Image pickup device, 10 ... Optical path switching means,

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An image pickup apparatus for collecting light rays from a subject by an objective lens and converting a subject image formed by the light rays into electrical information by an image pickup element, wherein a plurality of image pickup elements are provided, and each image pickup element is provided from the objective lens. An optical path splitting means for splitting the light beam condensed by the objective lens to the respective image pickup elements is provided in the optical path up to, and further lenses having different focal lengths are provided in each optical path from the optical path splitting means to each image pickup element. The image pickup device is characterized in that the magnification of the image formed on the light receiving surface of the image pickup element is made different among the image pickup elements. 2. An image pickup apparatus in which light rays from a subject are collected by an objective lens and a subject image formed by the light rays is converted into electrical information by an image pickup element. An optical path switching means for switching the optical path of the light beam condensed by the objective lens to the image pickup device is provided in the optical path up to, and further, in the respective optical paths from the optical path switching means to the respective image pickup devices, the focal lengths of the optical paths are different from each other. An image pickup apparatus, characterized in that different lenses are provided and the magnification of the image formed on the light receiving surface of the image pickup element is changed by switching the optical path by the switching means.