Patents by Inventor Kazufumi Mizusawa

Kazufumi Mizusawa has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20040201587
    Abstract: A subject of the present invention is to form simply a mapping table, which transforms a picked-up image of a real camera into an image viewed from a virtual viewpoint, by a small amount of computation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 26, 2004
    Publication date: October 14, 2004
    Inventor: Kazufumi Mizusawa
  • Patent number: 6801127
    Abstract: In correspondence with each face of a rectangular parallelepiped obtained when the inside of the rectangular parallelepiped is shot, a monitor screen is split into a plurality of sub-screen areas. An image shot by a vehicle-mounted camera is processed and the processed image is split correspondingly to the sub-screen areas. Each split image is displayed in the corresponding sub-screen areas. This allows intuitive understanding of the direction of an image displayed in a sub-screen thereby providing the driver with an image free from a sense of incongruity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2002
    Date of Patent: October 5, 2004
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazufumi Mizusawa, Masamichi Nakagawa, Shusaku Okamoto, Atsushi Iisaka, Takashi Yoshida
  • Publication number: 20040150589
    Abstract: An object of the invention is to provide a driving assistance display apparatus that enables the driver to check safety of the rear of the vehicle and grasp the limited area around the vehicle in the final stage of parking without switching screens.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 14, 2003
    Publication date: August 5, 2004
    Inventor: Kazufumi Mizusawa
  • Patent number: 6765607
    Abstract: In a driving aiding system for displaying a picked-up image of a rear-view camera equipped onto a rear portion of a vehicle on a screen of a displaying means arranged at a position which can be viewed from a driver's seat when the vehicle is to be backed, a locus estimated line 10 of a hitch which is equipped onto a rear portion of the vehicle is superposed on the picked-up image of the rear-view camera to display when a predetermined instruction input is received.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 2002
    Date of Patent: July 20, 2004
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazufumi Mizusawa, Shusaku Okamoto, Takashi Yoshida, Ryosuke Iida, Yuichi Hirama, Michio Miwa
  • Publication number: 20040105579
    Abstract: The object of the invention is to provide driving support apparatus which allows the driver to intuitively and more accurately recognize the situation around an obstacle thus reducing a burden of the driver.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 24, 2003
    Publication date: June 3, 2004
    Inventors: Hirofumi Ishii, Kazufumi Mizusawa, Tsuyoshi Okada
  • Publication number: 20030085999
    Abstract: The invention provides a vehicle surroundings monitoring system for synthesizing and displaying images captured by a plurality of cameras to provide images that, near the border between partial images, are more accurate and more readily understood by the user than has been the case conventionally. In the synthesized image, a partial image captured by a first camera and a partial image captured by a second camera are adjacent to one another at their border. Near this border, the capturing directions of the first and the second cameras both substantially match the direction of the border. Consequently, images of objects near the border extend along the border, and thus do not disappear on the synthesized image.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 15, 2002
    Publication date: May 8, 2003
    Inventors: Shusaku Okamoto, Masamichi Nakagawa, Atsushi Morimura, Kazufumi Mizusawa, Atsushi Iisaka, Takashi Yoshida
  • Publication number: 20030035050
    Abstract: In correspondence with each face of a rectangular parallelepiped obtained when the inside of the rectangular parallelepiped is shot, a monitor screen is split into a plurality of sub-screen areas. An image shot by a vehicle-mounted camera is processed and the processed image is split correspondingly to the sub-screen areas. Each split image is displayed in the corresponding sub-screen areas. This allows intuitive understanding of the direction of an image displayed in a sub-screen thereby providing the driver with an image free from a sense of incongruity.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 9, 2002
    Publication date: February 20, 2003
    Applicant: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazufumi Mizusawa, Masamichi Nakagawa, Shusaku Okamoto, Atsushi Iisaka, Takashi Yoshida
  • Publication number: 20020175832
    Abstract: Parking assistance apparatus that that displays on a screen an image shot by image picking-up means mounted on a vehicle, characterized in that said parking assistance apparatus superimposes a guide line that is parallel to the line tangent to the predicted outer locus of the vehicle assumed when the vehicle is backed with the wheel at the maximum steering angle. This allows the driver to drive the vehicle so that the guide line will not overlap the image of another vehicle thus allowing parking that avoids any contact.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 23, 2002
    Publication date: November 28, 2002
    Applicant: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazufumi Mizusawa, Shusaku Okamoto, Takashi Yoshida, Ryosuke Iida, Yuichi Hirama
  • Publication number: 20020145663
    Abstract: There are provided a displaying means arranged at a position that can be looked at from a driver's seat of a vehicle, an image picking-up means for picking up an image of a rear portion of the vehicle containing at least a part of a hitch that is provided to the rear portion of the vehicle, and an image processing means for causing the displaying means to display a synthesized image that is obtained by image-processing an image picked up by the image picking-up means, wherein a hitch image 35a of own vehicle in addition to an image 41a of a trailed vehicle and an image 42a of the coupler are displayed on a screen of the displaying means. As a result, the relative positional relationship between the hitch and the destination coupler can be checked on the screen and thus the hitch coupling operation can be facilitated.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 4, 2002
    Publication date: October 10, 2002
    Applicant: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazufumi Mizusawa, Shusaku Okamoto, Takashi Yoshida, Ryosuke Iida, Yuichi Hirama, Michio Miwa
  • Publication number: 20020145662
    Abstract: In a driving aiding system for displaying a picked-up image of a rear-view camera equipped onto a rear portion of a vehicle on a screen of a displaying means arranged at a position which can be viewed from a driver's seat when the vehicle is to be backed, a locus estimated line 10 of a hitch which is equipped onto a rear portion of the vehicle is superposed on the picked-up image of the rear-view camera to display when a predetermined instruction input is received.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 3, 2002
    Publication date: October 10, 2002
    Inventors: Kazufumi Mizusawa, Shusaku Okamoto, Takashi Yoshida, Ryosuke Iida, Yuichi Hirama, Michio Miwa
  • Publication number: 20020110262
    Abstract: There is disclosed a picture synthesizing apparatus for superimposing an auxiliary image upon an image converted as if the image were photographed with a virtual viewpoint, displaying the image in a monitor, and providing the image such that an approach to a surrounding solid object can easily be predicted from the monitor image. The picture synthesizing apparatus includes: an image pickup unit 101 disposed in a car; a viewpoint change image synthesizing unit 102 for changing a viewpoint of the image obtained by the image pickup unit 101 and synthesizing the image; a car straight locus line generation unit 103 for generating a locus line at an arbitrary height of the car, when the car linearly advances; and a car locus line drawing unit 104 for drawing the locus line generated by the car straight locus line generation unit 103 on the image synthesized by the viewpoint change image synthesizing unit 102.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 8, 2002
    Publication date: August 15, 2002
    Applicant: MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD
    Inventors: Ryosuke Iida, Kazufumi Mizusawa, Michio Miwa
  • Publication number: 20020094110
    Abstract: A driving assistance apparatus includes: cameras; a plurality of virtual observing point converting unit; an image synthesizing unit for synthesizing image information supplied from this virtual observing point converting unit; an obstacle sensing unit such as an ultrasonic-wave sensor and a millimeter-wave radar; a safety area predicting unit; and a safety area superposing unit. Then, the safety area predicting unit predicts such a safety area where an obstacle is not present based upon both a distance “d1” and an approximate direction, which are obtained from the obstacle sensing unit. Also, the safety area superposing unit superposes the safety area predicted by the safety area predicting unit on an image synthesized by way of cameras to display the synthesized image superposed with the safety area.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 6, 2001
    Publication date: July 18, 2002
    Inventors: Tsuyoshi Okada, Kazufumi Mizusawa