Method for producing images with depth information and image sensor
US9699442B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 14, 2013 |
| Grant date | Jul 4, 2017 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 9, 2034 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04N2013/0081
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
The invention relates to the production of images associating with each point of the image a depth, i.e. a distance between the observed point and the camera that produced the image.A light source emits N trains of light pulses. For each train of rank I=1 to N, charge is integrated in a short time slot of length Tint that starts with a temporal offset ti relative to the pulse, this temporal offset representing a journey time of the light pulse between the light source and the sensor after reflection from a point placed a distance di from the sensor. The temporal offset ti is the same for all the light pulses of the ith pulse train but the temporal offsets ti of the N trains are different from one another in order to correspond to various distances relative to the sensor. The charge photogenerated by the pulses of a given train is accumulated; then the accumulated charge is read in order to produce an image of rank i representing the pixels located at the distance di. The observation of a scene comprises producing N different images by virtue of which it is possible to associate a distance with each pixel.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.