Multi-eye image sensing apparatus
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsKotaro Yano, Keisuke Araki, Toshihiro Sunaga
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In a multi-eye camera head unit (10), a panoramic image sensing exchangeable camera head unit (111) and three-dimensional image sensing exchangeable camera head unit (112) are exchanged in correspondence with the image sensing mode. The panoramic image sensing exchangeable camera head unit (111) includes a pair of optical elements (111R, 111L), which comprise offaxial optical systems each having a plurality of reflecting and refracting surfaces. The three-dimensional image sensing camera head unit (112) includes a pair of optical elements (112R, 112L), which comprise offaxial optical systems each having a plurality of reflecting and refracting surfaces.
Claims33
A multi-eye image sensing apparatus having a plurality of image sensing systems,
- wherein at least one offaxial optical system block which includes an offaxial reflecting surface that is an asymmetric aspherical surface, and has a refractive power that can form a real image as a whole is provided to each of the image sensing systems.
A multi-eye image sensing apparatus having a plurality of image sensing systems, wherein the plurality of image sensing systems have a three-dimensional image sensing optical block for producing disparity between the right and left image sensing systems, and a panoramic image sensing optical block for substantially matching viewpoints of the right and left image sensing systems with each other, the three-dimensional and panoramic image sensing optical blocks comprise offaxial optical system blocks each of which includes an offaxial reflecting surface that is an asymmetric aspherical surface as a building component, and has a refractive power that can form a real image, and the three-dimensional and panoramic image sensing modes can be switched to one another by switching between the three-dimensional and panoramic image sensing optical blocks.
A multi-eye image sensing apparatus having a plurality of image sensing systems, wherein each of the plurality of image sensing systems has at least one offaxial optical system block which includes an offaxial reflecting surface that is an asymmetric aspherical surface as a building component, and has a refractive power that can form a real image, each offaxial optical system block includes a three-dimensional image sensing optical path for producing disparity between the right and left image sensing systems, and a panoramic image sensing optical path for substantially matching viewpoints of the right and left image sensing systems with each other, and three-dimensional and panoramic image sensing modes can be switched to one another by switching between the three-dimensional and panoramic image sensing optical paths by rotating the offaxial reflecting surface in the offaxial optical system block.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.