Imaging system
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsKenichi Saito, Yoshikazu Shinohara, Pierre-Jean Parodi-Keravec
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An imaging system including a front aperture, two or more refractive lens elements mounted in a lens barrel, and a photosensor. One or more of the components of the imaging system (e.g., the aperture, lenses, lens groups, and/or photosensor) are tilted with respect to each other and/or with respect to a center (or mechanical) axis of the imaging system to compensate for effects including but not limited to keystone distortion, resolution non-uniformity, and gradient blur that result from tilt of an object in the field of view of the camera with respect to the center axis of the camera.
Claims23
A camera, comprising:
- a photosensor that captures light projected onto a surface of the photosensor;
- a front aperture;
- and
- a lens system comprising two or more refractive lens elements that refract light received through the aperture from an object located in a field of view of the camera to form an image of the object at an image plane, wherein the camera is positioned with respect to the object such that one end of the object is closer to the camera than an opposite end of the object;
- wherein to form the image of the object at the image plane, the two or more refractive lens elements increase local effective focal length (EFL) and magnification for light received through the aperture from the end of the object that is farther from the camera and decrease local EFL and magnification for light received through the aperture from the end of the object that is closer to the camera.
A method, comprising:
- receiving, at an aperture of a camera, light from an object plane that is tilted with respect to the camera;
- refracting, by a lens system comprising two or more refractive lens elements, light from the object plane that passes through the aperture to form an image of the object plane at an image plane at or near the surface of a photosensor, wherein at least one of the refractive lens elements is tilted with respect to at least one other refractive lens element to increase local effective focal length (EFL) and magnification for light received through the aperture from the end of the object plane that is farther from the camera and to decrease local EFL and magnification for light received through the aperture from the end of the object plane that is closer to the camera;
- and
- capturing, by the photosensor, an image of the object plane.
A system, comprising:
- a camera comprising two or more refractive lens elements that refract light received from an object plane located in a field of view of the camera to form an image of the object plane at an image plane, wherein the camera is positioned with respect to the object plane such that one end of the object plane is closer to the camera than an opposite end of the object plane, and wherein at least one of the refractive lens elements is tilted with respect to at least one other refractive lens element to provide an asymmetric air gap between the at least one refractive lens element and the at least one other refractive lens element to increase local effective focal length (EFL) and magnification for light received from the end of the object plane that is farther from the camera and to decrease local EFL and magnification for light received from the end of the object plane that is closer to the camera;
- and
- a device coupled to the camera, comprising:
- one or more processors;
- a memory comprising program instructions executable by at least one of the one or more processors to receive and process images of the object plane captured by the camera.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.