US 5,402,171 AGranted

Electronic still camera with improved picture resolution by image shifting in a parallelogram arrangement

AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

InventorsYoshitomo Tagami, Yuji Ide, Masafumi Umeda, Toshihiro Morohoshi, Kazuhiro Takashima, Mitsuo Sasuga, Akihiko Sugikawa

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Abstract

An electronic still camera comprises a solid state image sensor for outputting a color picture signal corresponding an incident optical image, a signal processor for signal-processing the color picture signal from the solid state image sensor to produce a color still picture signal, a recorder for recording the color still picture signal produced by the signal processor, and a driver for moving at least one of the optical image and the solid state image sensor from an original position in a horizontal direction by a pixel pitch and in an oblique axial direction defined by horizontal and vertical lines extending respectively from the original position in the horizontal and vertical directions by half the pixel pitch.

Claims32

Dependent claims

An electronic device comprising:

an image sensor for outputting an image signal based upon an optical image that is incident thereon, the image sensor including:
a plurality of optical filters arranged in both a horizontal and a vertical direction;
and
a plurality of pixels located at positions corresponding to positions of the optical filters;
and
a moving unit for moving the optical image in one of the horizontal direction and the vertical direction, and for moving the optical image in an oblique direction among first second, third and fourth positions, the first, second, third and fourth positions defining four vertexes of a parallelogram the first position being a current position of the optical image, the second position being shifted by a distance of one pixel pitch from the first position in one of the horizontal and vertical directions, the third position being shifted by a distance of a half pixel pitch from the first position in both the horizontal and vertical directions, the fourth position being shifted a distance from the first position so as to form the fourth vertex along a diagonal of the parallelogram;
the image signal outputted by the image sensor being readable at each of the first, second, third and fourth positions.

4 more elements

An electronic device comprising:

an image sensor for outputting an image signal based upon an optical image that is incident thereon, the image sensor including:
a plurality of optical color filters arranged in both a horizontal and a vertical direction, the optical filters including:
mosaic filters, having filter elements, arranged in both the horizontal and vertical directions, each of the mosaic filters being arranged in a unit in which the filter elements are arranged in one of a pattern of two rows and two columns, a pattern of four rows and two columns and a pattern of two rows and four columns, the filter elements being one of three-color and four-color filter elements;
and
a plurality of pixels located at positions corresponding to positions of the optical color filters;
and
a moving unit for moving the optical image in one of the horizontal direction and the vertical direction, and for moving the optical image in an oblique direction among first second, third and fourth positions, the first, second, third and fourth positions defining four vertexes of a parallelogram, the first position being a current position of the optical image, the second position being shifted by a distance of one pixel pitch from the first position in one of the horizontal and vertical directions, the third position being shifted by a distance of a half pixel pitch from the first position in both the horizontal and vertical directions, the fourth position being shifted by a distance from the first position so as to form the fourth vertex along a diagonal of the parallelogram;
the image signal outputted by the image sensor being readable at each of the first, second, third and fourth positions.

5 more elements

An electronic device comprising:

an image sensor for outputting an image signal based upon an optical image that is incident thereon, the image sensor including:
a plurality of optical color filters arranged in both a horizontal and a vertical direction, the optical filters including:
mosaic filters, having filter elements, arranged in both the horizontal and vertical directions, each of the mosaic filters being arranged in a unit in which the filter elements are arranged in one of a pattern of two rows and two columns, a pattern of four rows and two columns and a pattern of two rows and four columns, the filter elements being one of three-color and four-color filter elements;
and
a plurality of pixels located at positions corresponding to positions of the optical color filters;
and
a moving unit for moving the image sensor in one of the horizontal direction and the vertical direction, and for moving the optical image in an oblique direction among first, second, third and fourth positions, the first, second, third and fourth positions defining four vertexes of a parallelogram, the first position being a current position of the image sensor, the second position being shifted by a distance of one pixel pitch from the first position in one of the horizontal and vertical directions, the third position being shifted by a distance of a half pixel pitch from the first position in both the horizontal and vertical directions, the fourth position being shifted by a distance from the first position so as to form the fourth vertex along a diagonal of the parallelogram;
the image signal outputted by the image sensor being readable at each of the first, second, third and fourth positions.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.