Abstract: A color television camera has a semiconductor image sensor composed of sensor elements of the CCD type arranged in a raster. The charges produced in the sensor elements within an integration interval are read out as video signals. The image on the semiconductor image sensor is shifted in the horizontal direction by a fraction of a raster unit of measurement from one integration interval to the next integration interval in a cyclical fashion. An increase of the resolution in the vertical direction will then result by reading out the video signals from the semiconductor image sensor. The horizontal image shift is produced in the optical path between the objective lens of the image sensor by means of filter disk mounted so as to be bistable. The filter disk can thereby be flipped through a predetermined angle and back between integration intervals of the image sensor.

Abstract: An apparatus for driving an image pick-up device having a pulse signal output device which outputs transfer pulses for transferring signal charges accumulated in the light receiving portion of the image pick-up device to vertical transfer portions. The apparatus includes read pulses for reading the signal charges transferred to the vertical transfer portions, sweep pulses for sweeping the signal charges transferred to the vertical transfer portions, and a controller for controlling these pulses. The controller controls the time at which the pulses are outputted. A device may be provided for selectively switching between first and second transfer pulses to be input to the image pick-up device. The first transfer pulses come from the pulse signal output device and the second transfer pulses come from the controller.

Abstract: An ultrasonic flow velocity measurement method and apparatus thereof and comprises ultrasonic wave transducers disposed on the upstream and downstream sides of a pipe and a control apparatus connected to these ultrasonic wave transducers. Concerning the flow velocity measurement, an average propagation sound velocity in the wedge which forms the ultrasonic wave transducers and the sound velocity on the surface where the wedge is brought into contact with the pipe are measured. The time from when ultrasonic waves are originated from the upstream side to the downstream side and and vice versa and to when they are received is measured. These measured values and the distance between the ultrasonic wave transducers are substituted for a predetermined function to determine the flow velocity of a fluid inside the pipe.

Abstract: A strobe control method is provided for use in an image pick-up system which performs pseudo-frame photography by staggering, for a prescribed short period of time, the timings at which the photoelectric transducers of a first field and the photoelectric transducers of a second field are cleared in solid-state electronic image sensing devices, and staggering, between the first and second fields and for the aforementioned prescribed short period of time, the timings at which electric charges are read from these photoelectric transducers. The strobe control method includes steps of controlling strobe-light emission in such a manner that the start timing of strobe-light emission occurs after the processing for clearing both fields, and forcibly stopping strobe-light emission for a requisite period of time before charge readout timing of the first field.

Abstract: A method of tracking a moving object in a scene, for example the face of a person in videophone applications, comprises forming an initial template of the face, extracting a mask outlining the face, dividing the template into a plurality (for example sixteen) sub-templates, searching the next frame to find a match with the template, searching the next frame to find a match with each of the sub-templates, determining the displacements of each of the sub-templates with respect to the template, using the displacements to determine affine transform coefficients and performing an affine transform to produce an updated template and updated mask.

Abstract: Image signals of moving subjects which are imaged by a slit camera, and time information generated by a time information generator after it has been reset by a start trigger signal, are successively stored in and erased from a large-storage-capacity memory on a first-in, first-out basis. After elapse of a predetermined time period after a record trigger signal has been supplied from a record trigger generator, a storage time control circuit controls the memory to stop storing and erasing the image signals and the time information, and keeps the image signals and the time information stored which have been stored before the memory stops storing and erasing the image signals and the time information. The image information of the subjects and the time information associated with the image information can be stored in the memory within a storage time that depends on the storage capacity of the memory.

Abstract: An image information processing apparatus having an input unit for inputting image information, a synthesizing unit for synthesizing the image information for a plurality of frames inputted from the input unit, and a coding unit for coding the image information synthesized by the synthesizing unit. In particular, the apparatus can synthesize information from the front and the back surfaces of a two-sided original.

Abstract: A video camera specifies as a photometric area any block of a field of image to be picked up and picks up a subject to be seen by optimizing the amount of light regardless of the position where a television camera is located. The video camera comprises a solid-state image pick-up element (CCD), a display device and devices for controlling the diaphragm of a lens. In operation, the image picked up by the solid-state image pick-up element is divided into plural blocks to be displayed. Any block of these plural blocks can be specified as a photometric area. The amount of light for the photometric area is calculated and the diaphragm of the lens is controlled so that the subject can be seen by optimizing amount of light.

Abstract: A video camera equipped with an image sensor for producing an analog video signal, an A-D converter for converting the analog video signal to a digital video signal in a manner that any component thereof above a predetermined luminance level is clipped, and a flare correcting circuit for removing any flare component superposed on the digital video signal.

Abstract: An image reading apparatus includes a photoelectric conversion element which has a plurality of cells, the plurality of cells including shielded cells which are optically shielded so that each shielded cell outputs only the dark signal, a dark signal data generating system for generating dark signal data for each cell of the photoelectric conversion element, the dark signal data corresponding to a ratio of an image signal output from each cell under a no-exposure condition to a first reference dark signal which is obtained based on the dark signals output from the shielded cells under the no-exposure condition, a dark signal data memory for storing the dark signal data for each cell, a dark signal component generating system for generating a dark signal component for each cell, the dark signal component corresponding to a product of the dark signal data for each cell multiplied by a second reference dark signal which is obtained based on the dark signals output from the shielded cells under the exposure condi

Abstract: In an image pickup apparatus having an image pickup device and a shutter speed control circuit for controlling a shutter speed of the image pickup device, the shutter speed control circuit is comprised of a circuit for generating a sensor gate pulse in accordance with a vertical scanning timing so as to output an accumulated charge in the image pickup device, a circuit for generating a saw tooth signal being reset to a predetermined voltage level in accordance with the sensor gate pulse, an inclination of the saw tooth signal in just before reset to the predetermined voltage level being larger than the same in just after reset to the predetermined voltage level, a circuit for comparing a voltage level of an output signal of the image pickup device with the saw tooth signal so as to generate a gate pulse, and a circuit for controlling an accumulating period of the image pickup device in accordance with the gate pulse.

Abstract: In order to efficiently controlling a compressing feeder of refuse, a novel detector system for existence or non-existence of refuse, a novel detector system for stagnation of refuse, and a novel system for preventing stagnation of refuse, are disclosed. The refuse existence detector system comprises an image pick-up device, an A/D converter for an analog image signal, a background image memory, a luminance variation detector, a background image selector, a subtractor for subtracting a background image signal from a digitized image signal, a binary encoder for issuing binary-coded image difference signal, an area calculator for calculating an area of an image region where the binary-coded image difference signal is binary "1", and a determinator device for determining whether existence or non-existence of refuse on the basis of the output of the area calculator. The refuse stagnation detector system and the refuse stagnation preventing system are constructed on the basis of a similar inventive concept.

Abstract: A streak camera having improved time resolving capacity in the femtosecond regime. The streak camera uses magnetic and/or electric fields in such a way as to minimize the adverse effects of angular distribution and energy distribution of photoelectrons simultaneously emitted from a photocathode in response to the impinging of light thereon.

Abstract: When signal charges stored in a vertical transfer shift register (8V) of a CCD (8), for example, are shifted to a horizontal transfer shift register (8H), signal charges of a predetermined line are shifted at low speed and signal charges of other lines are shifted at high speed. Thus, a camera having an area sensor formed of a solid state imager element (CCD) or the like can pick up an image in the form of a standard television signal and also can serve as an entirely electronic slit camera.

Abstract: An apparatus and method useful in correcting character strings misread by a character recognition engine. The misread string is compared to character strings contained in a lexicon of valid character strings and the similarity between the strings measured. The valid strings can be ranked by degree of similarity should further selection be required to determine the appropriate value of the misread character string.

Abstract: An image, having N dimensions, is partitioned into a set of bounded arbitrarily shaped regions. This partitioning is achieved through the use of arbitrarily shaped N-1 dimensional surfaces which pass through the boundaries of the image. The arbitrarily shaped regions are represented in the leaf nodes of a binary tree and the arbitrarily shaped surfaces, which are used to partition the image, are represented in the non-leaf nodes of the tree. In a preferred embodiment, arbitrarily oriented lines passing through the image boundaries are employed to partition a two-dimensional image into a set of convex regions. The convex regions are represented in the leaf nodes of a binary tree and the arbitrarily oriented lines, which are used to partition the image, are represented in the non-leaf nodes of the tree. Furthermore, the arbitrarily oriented lines are selected through the use of a Hough transform and the image is partitioned, along the selected lines, in a recursive manner as the binary tree is developed.

Abstract: A digital electronic still camera wherein additional information such as an operation characteristic of the camera can be recorded into and reproduced from a removable record medium. A pickup image signal is picked up by a CCD image sensor and converted into a digital signal by an analog to digital converter. The digital signal is temporarily stored into a digital memory and written onto a removable optical disk apparatus. The digital electronic still camera further comprises an additional information recording and reproducing circuit for recording and reproducing additional information such as an operation characteristic of the camera onto or from the optical disk apparatus.

Abstract: An imaging assembly, which is particularly useful for a video camera unit, comprising a set of lenses, some of which have a non-refractive surface, and an image sensor. A holder is provided for holding both the set of lenses and the image sensor to be aligned with one another. Circuitry is also provided so that the sensitivity of the image sensor can be electrically varied.

Abstract: An exposure correcting loop detects an image pickup signal level and controls a gain of an AGC amplifier and/or an opening of an iris in accordance with the image pickup signal level. A flicker cancelling loop has a flicker detector and detects a flicker component level in the image pickup signal and controls the gain of the AGC amplifier and/or the opening of the iris so that the flicker component level is cancelled. The exposure correcting loop and flicker detector are independent systems.

Abstract: A character recongintion device has a subdivider, a features calculator and a character code recognition device. Image data for a single character area is extracted from scanned character image data and input to the subdivider. This subdivider divides the image data for the single character area into subregions. The features calculator calculates quantified features in each subregion based on a degree of resemblance between a template and image data in the subregions. When the features of each subregion are calculated for all subregions constituting the single character area, a character code corresponding to the scanned character image data is recognized by the character code recognition device based on the quantified features of each of all subregions.