Abstract: A biaxial driving mechanism, an image inputting apparatus used this biaxial driving mechanism and a light projecting apparatus used this biaxial driving mechanism, in which a mirror positioned in front of a camera or a light projecting instrument is rotated biaxially, and takes an image of a desiring direction or projects an image to a desiring direction without having an electric connection between the mirror and a driving part, are provided. In the biaxial driving mechanism, a horizontal rotating mechanism provides a ring gear, whose center axis is the same as that of an optical axis of a camera, holds a mirror, and a motor for rotating the ring gear around the optical axis of the camera.

Abstract: In a communications network where first and second communication terminals are interconnected via a common communication medium such as a local area network, the terminals jointly establish an infrared light private communication link if they are brought close to each other. The first and second terminals communicate their network addresses to each other either via the local area network or via the private communication link, and establish a session between the communicated network addresses via the local area network if the strength of the infrared-light private communication link at the receiving end is higher than a decision threshold..

Abstract: In order to perform image registration of first and second images using block matching wherein the first image is divided into a plurality of blocks, the plurality of blocks are classified into a plurality of block groups, using block matching results, such that the blocks classified into the same block group are considered to produce similar position correcting parameters. A plurality of position correcting parameters is determined with each of the plurality of block groups specified above. Thereafter, most appropriate position correcting parameters are determined, among the position correction parameters determined by referring to said first and second images.

Abstract: When compositing a plurality of acquired partial images, the effects of differences in viewpoint contained in the partial images can be reduced, and a high quality wide-viewfield image is inputted.

Abstract: To provide an image input system which enables to obtain a high-precision composite image at high speed with an easy operation from divisional images taken from an object, through calculating positional relations among the divisional images at high speed and with high precision by making use of the characteristic of the image input operation; an image acquisition indicating means (112) generates an image acquisition indication referring to a present position of a camera (110) detected by a position detector (110). Each of the divisional images is acquired according to the image acquisition indication automatically at fixed intervals so as to have an overlap with another of the divisional images and stored together with attribution information and acquisition condition of the divisional image.

Abstract: An image position adjustment device which can let the user adjust alignment between two or more images easily and efficiently includes a feature extraction section, a display image generation section, and a displaying order setting section. The feature extraction section generates feature images which provide the user with clues effective for image position adjustment procedure corresponding to each of the images. The display image generation section generates a ‘display image’ for part or the whole of an image which has been selected by the user as the target of image position adjustment, using corresponding part or the whole of the feature image of the selected image. And the displaying order setting section sets displaying order of images so that the display image which has been generated by the display image generation section using the feature image of the selected image can be displayed in front of other images, and lets a display section display the images according to the displaying order.

Abstract: In order to provide a still image reader enabling easy acquisition of high resolution image data of a desired scope, sufficiently portable and not expensive at the same time, a multi-shot still image reader of the invention comprises a position detector (11) for detecting each position of the camera unit (10) from where each of the plurality of partial images is taken; a frame for unitizing the position detector (11) and the camera unit (10) and enabling displacement of the camera unit (10) parallel to the object; and means (14) for calculating candidate vectors for each of the plurality of partial images, a correction vector giving a correct position where said each of the plurality of partial images is to be synthesized being selected among said candidate vectors.