Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N1/00—Scanning, transmission or reproduction of documents or the like, e.g. facsimile transmission; Details thereof
  • H04N1/00127—Connection or combination of a still picture apparatus with another apparatus, e.g. for storage, processing or transmission of still picture signals or of information associated with a still picture
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G04—HOROLOGY
  • G04G—ELECTRONIC TIME-PIECES
  • G04G5/00—Setting, i.e. correcting or changing, the time-indication
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N1/00—Scanning, transmission or reproduction of documents or the like, e.g. facsimile transmission; Details thereof
  • H04N1/21—Intermediate information storage
  • H04N1/2104—Intermediate information storage for one or a few pictures
  • H04N1/2158—Intermediate information storage for one or a few pictures using a detachable storage unit
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N1/00—Scanning, transmission or reproduction of documents or the like, e.g. facsimile transmission; Details thereof
  • H04N1/32—Circuits or arrangements for control or supervision between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device, e.g. between a still-image camera and its memory or between a still-image camera and a printer device
  • H04N1/32101—Display, printing, storage or transmission of additional information, e.g. ID code, date and time or title
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N2101/00—Still video cameras
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N2201/00—Indexing scheme relating to scanning, transmission or reproduction of documents or the like, and to details thereof
  • H04N2201/32—Circuits or arrangements for control or supervision between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device, e.g. between a still-image camera and its memory or between a still-image camera and a printer device
  • H04N2201/3201—Display, printing, storage or transmission of additional information, e.g. ID code, date and time or title
  • H04N2201/3212—Display, printing, storage or transmission of additional information, e.g. ID code, date and time or title of data relating to a job, e.g. communication, capture or filing of an image
  • H04N2201/3215—Display, printing, storage or transmission of additional information, e.g. ID code, date and time or title of data relating to a job, e.g. communication, capture or filing of an image of a time or duration
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N2201/00—Indexing scheme relating to scanning, transmission or reproduction of documents or the like, and to details thereof
  • H04N2201/32—Circuits or arrangements for control or supervision between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device, e.g. between a still-image camera and its memory or between a still-image camera and a printer device
  • H04N2201/3201—Display, printing, storage or transmission of additional information, e.g. ID code, date and time or title
  • H04N2201/3274—Storage or retrieval of prestored additional information

Definitions

• the present invention is directed to digital cameras having a real- time clock and, more particularly, to such digital cameras having a real-time clock with a default setting.
• digital cameras include a clock that keeps real-time for permitting various timing features to be performed.
• the date and time that an image is captured is recorded and associated with each captured image. This can be done by storing Date / Time metadata in the image file.
• the well-know Exif image file format includes a DateTimeOriginal tag, which can be used to store the date and time that each image was captured.
• the DateTimeOriginal tag can be read by various computer software photo applications, such as Kodak EasyShare software, in order to display the captured images in chronological order or to retrieve images captured on a particular date, or during a particular time period.
• the real-time clock stops functioning.
• An extended power loss can occur when the batteries are removed from the digital camera for several minutes or longer, or when depleted batteries remain in the digital camera for several minutes or longer.
• the date and time are set to a default value, such as the original manufacturing time and date, and the user is prompted to set the date/time to the current value. Users often bypass this prompt and the default date and time setting is applied.
• the date and time metadata stored with subsequently captured images is not only incorrect, it is set to an earlier date than the date stored with the images captured prior to the extended power loss. Therefore, the images appear out of chronological order when displayed, with the more recently captured images appearing to have been captured prior to those that were captured before the extended power loss.
• US Patent Application 2005/0110880 to Parulski et al. discloses a digital camera with a real-time clock for recording and associating the real-time clock value with the captured images.
• a communication is established between the digital camera and a separate electronic device, such as a computer, also with a real-time clock.
• a predetermined time-difference correlation is made between the time of the real-time clock of the digital camera and the real-time clock of the computer, and the time recorded with the captured images is modified based on the time-difference correlation.
• US Patent 6,910,147B2 discloses a digital recording apparatus in communication with a computer, and the computer "provides a date and time reference to which to relate the digital recording apparatus' real time clock.”
• the present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.
• the invention resides in a digital camera having a clock for keeping time; memory for receiving and storing time updates; and a processor for directing the time updates to be recorded in the memory upon occurrence of any of a plurality of camera operations; wherein a default time for the clock is dynamically updated as the time of the last recorded time in the memory.
• the present invention has the advantage of keeping images in the correct chronological order, if the clock ceases running as a result of depleted batteries or the like, so that time order is preserved.
• FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a camera of the present invention
• FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the clocking operations of the digital camera
• FIG. 3 is flowchart illustrating the operation of the clock resetting of the camera of the present invention.
• the digital camera 10 includes a lens 12 which directs image light from a subject (not shown) through an aperture/shutter controller 13 upon an image sensor 14 having a discrete number of photosensitive sites or pixels arranged in a two-dimensional array to form individual photosensitive sites corresponding to the pixels of the image.
• the image sensor 14 can be a charge coupled device (CCD) sensor or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) imager, both of which are well known in the art.
• CMOS complementary metal oxide semiconductor
• Each photosensitive site is overlaid with a color filter array (CFA), such as the Bayer CFA described in commonly-assigned U.S. Patent No. 3,971,065.
• CFA color filter array
• the Bayer CFA has 50% green pixels in a checkerboard pattern, with the remaining pixels alternating between red and blue rows.
• the photosensitive sites respond to the appropriately colored incident light illumination to provide an analog signal corresponding to the intensity of illumination incident on the photosensitive sites.
• the analog output of each pixel is amplified and analog processed by an analog signal processor (ASP) 16 to reduce the image sensor's output amplifier noise.
• the output of the ASP 16 is converted to a digital image signal by an analog-to-digital (AJO) converter 18, such as, for example, an 8 bit A/D converter which provides an 8 bit signal in the sequence of the Bayer CFA.
• AJO analog-to-digital
• the digitized image signal is temporarily stored in a frame memory 20, and is then processed and compressed by a digital signal processor (DSP) 22.
• the image processing typically includes white balance, color correction, tone correction, and image sharpening.
• the DSP 22 may also decimate (or re-sample) the digitized image signal for each still image to produce a thumbnail image having fewer pixels (i.e., lower resolution) than the original captured image as described in commonly-assigned U.S. Patent No. 5,164,831 to Kuchta et al.
• the image file containing both the full resolution image and the thumbnail image is stored in a data memory 26, and then transferred through a memory card interface 32 to a memory card 28 that is present in a memory card slot 30 of the digital camera 10.
• the thumbnail image is also sent to an image display 24 through an LCD controller 25 where the user can view the image.
• the display is shown as an LCD display, OLED displays may also be used.
• the image display 24 includes a conventional arrangement for displaying the captured image.
• the image display 24 may, alternatively, utilize many other types of raster image displays, including miniature CRT's, organic light emitting diode (OLED) arrays, or field emission displays.
• the memory card 28 can be a flash memory card adapted to one of the numerous memory card format standards, such as the well-known PC card, Compact Flash, SmartMedia, MemoryStick, MMC or SD memory card formats. Electrical connection between the memory card 28 and the digital camera 10 is maintained through a card connector (not shown) positioned in the memory card slot 30.
• the memory card interface 32 and the card connector provide, e.g., an interface according to the aforementioned PCMCIA card or CompactFlash interface standard.
• the image file may also be sent to a host computer (not shown), which is connected to the digital camera 10 through a host computer interface 34.
• a camera microprocessor 36 receives user inputs 48, such as from a shutter release (not shown), and initiates a capture sequence by signaling a timing generator 38.
• the timing generator 38 is connected generally to the elements of the digital camera 10, as shown in FIG. 1, for controlling the digital conversion, compression, and storage of the image signal.
• the camera microprocessor 36 also processes a signal from a photodiode 44 for determining a proper exposure, and accordingly signals an exposure driver 46 for setting the aperture and shutter speed via the aperture/shutter controller 13 and triggers a flash unit 42 (if needed).
• the image sensor 14 is then driven from the timing generator 38 via a sensor driver 40 to produce the image signal.
• the user inputs 48 are used to control the operation of the digital camera 10 in a well-known manner.
• a clock 50 provides real-time time keeping for the digital camera 10.
• the microprocessor 36 reads the date and time of capture as indicated by the real-time clock 50 and stores and associates it with the particular captured image in the memory card 28, such as by storing the date and time in the DateTimeOriginal tag within the Exif image file which contains the captured image data. This enables the captured images to have its time of capture stored with the image which is beneficial when chronological ordering of the images or the like is desired.
• the camera 10 of the present invention also includes non- volatile memory 52 that is periodically dynamically updated with the date and time from the clock 50, when a particular camera operation occurs.
• the current date and time from the clock 50 can be stored in non-volatile memory 52 as directed by the microprocessor 36.
• the clock 50 can update the non-volatile memory 52.
• the clock is updated as the camera is being powered down, or on a regular basis (e.g. once per minute) whenever the camera is powered on, or whenever an image is edited by the camera 10.
• the non- volatile memory 52 can be included as part of the camera microprocessor 36, memory card 28, or one of the other camera components.
• the functions of the camera microprocessor 36, digital signal processor 22, non- volatile memory 52, and clock 50 can be provided by custom circuitry (e.g. by one or more custom integrated circuits (ICs) designed specifically for use in digital cameras), or by a combination of programmable processors) and custom circuits.
• custom circuitry e.g. by one or more custom integrated circuits (ICs) designed specifically for use in digital cameras, or by a combination of programmable processors) and custom circuits.
• the user Upon start-up after a power loss, the user is prompted, using a graphical user interface displayed on image display 24, to input the current date and time using user inputs 48, or to instead select the default setting.
• the default setting is set to the date and time of the last recorded time of a camera operation, which was previously stored in non- volatile memory 52. Therefore, if the user does not input a time, the default setting of the date and time stored in non-volatile memory 52 is automatically input as the new date and time for the clock 50, and the clock 50 starts its real-time time counting based on this stored value rather than on a factory default setting as its starting point.
• the period of this "error" is equal to the elapsed time between when date and time was stored in non-volatile memory 52 (prior to the extended power loss) and when the user set the real-time clock to the default setting.
• the error period can range from a few minutes to a much longer period of time, depending on whether the user was slowly changing the camera batteries, or whether the camera 10 was sitting unused for many months while the batteries slowly depleted.
• the error period can be corrected as described in US Patent Application 2005/0110880 to Parulski et al.
• the method described in paragraph 43 of Parulski, et. al. can be used to store a clock status value in the non-volatile memory 52.
• This clock status value is incremented each time the real-time clock is reset, and is stored as metadata in the image file.
• Each image having the same clock status value metadata will have the same error period. Therefore, if the approximate error period (e.g. 14 days and 8 hours) is determined for one of the images (such as by knowing that the image was captured on Christmas morning, for example), the date and time of all of the other images having the same clock status value can be corrected by applying the same error period correction (e.g. automatically adding 14 days plus 8 hours to the date and time of these other images).
• the approximate error period e.g. 14 days and 8 hours
• the digital camera 10 can also capture motion video images, hi alternative embodiments, the digital camera 10 can include other functions, such as those provided by including the functions of a digital music player (e.g. MP3 player), a mobile telephone, and / or a programmable digital assistant (PDA).
• a digital music player e.g. MP3 player
• a mobile telephone e.g., a cellular telephone
• PDA programmable digital assistant
• FIG. 2 there is shown a block diagram of the camera 10 of the present invention illustrating the portions that are responsible for the default setting.
• the clock 50 keeps real-time date and time, and the clock reset value in non-volatile memory 52 is initially set as the date and time of manufacture at the factory.
• the clock 50 may lose its timing capabilities for various reasons. In this case, the clock 50 will need to be reset either manually or with the default setting. If the user manually resets the clock 50, the microprocessor 36 directs the date and time that was manually input to also be stored in the non-volatile memory 52 with this date and time. This time now becomes the default time setting in non- volatile memory 52.
• the microprocessor 36 also directs the default setting to be automatically updated upon the occurrence of any one of a number of camera operations (i.e., dynamically updated) and that manual reset is only one example. Further instances of camera operations that will cause the clock reset value in non- volatile memory 52 to be reset are when an image is captured, power down and editing of an image. Therefore, the default setting stored as the clock reset value is constantly updated during the lifetime of the camera 10. Consequently, when the default setting is selected to update the clock 52 after it loses track of time, the current value in non-volatile memory 52 is used which is the last time the clock reset value was updated and recorded in non-volatile memory 52.
• Fig. 3 provides a flow diagram of the present invention illustrating the clock resetting. It is noted that the flowchart illustrates only the pertinent functions related to the clock resetting of the present invention and does not illustrate the various other functions that the camera performs.
• the processor 36 Upon powering the camera on S2, the processor 36 checks to verify if the clock needs resetting S4. If the clock does not need resetting, the processor continuously verifies if any of a plurality of camera operations are performed SlO. If any of the operations are performed, the processor 36 directs the time to be stored in non- volatile memory 52 so that it may be used as the default setting in the future. If the clock 50 needs resetting S4, the default value is read S6 from non-volatile memory 52 and the clock is updated S8 with this default time.
• This default time is then displayed on the image display 24.
• the user can adjust this default value S9 to the proper time using the user inputs 48. Because the default value may be close to the proper time (e.g., it may be in error by only a few hours or a few days), it is much faster and easier for the user to adjust the time to be the proper time compared to the prior art situation where the clock is set to the factory default time. For example, the current time could be May 4, 2009 at 10:17am while the factory default time could be January 1 , 2008. If the user took many pictures the previous day and depleted the batteries (thus causing an extended power loss), the default time could be May 3, 2009 at 4:23pm. When the clock 50 is reset S4 to the default value S6, the displayed time will be May 3, 2009 at
• the processor then monitors any of the plurality of camera operations SlO and the default time is updated S 12 continuously upon the occurrence of any of the plurality of events.
• the clock 50 may update default setting in non- volatile memory 52 periodically without the occurrence of any one of the predetermined operations.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Studio Devices (AREA)
• Camera Data Copying Or Recording (AREA)
• Television Signal Processing For Recording (AREA)

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• 2009
  • 2009-05-14 US US12/465,698 patent/US20100289921A1/en not_active Abandoned
• 2010
  • 2010-05-03 CN CN2010800211337A patent/CN102422287A/zh active Pending
  • 2010-05-03 EP EP10718347A patent/EP2430570A1/en not_active Withdrawn
  • 2010-05-03 JP JP2012510791A patent/JP2012527159A/ja active Pending
  • 2010-05-03 WO PCT/US2010/001306 patent/WO2010132089A1/en not_active Ceased

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