United States Patent (19) 11) Patent Number: 5,138,459 Roberts Et Al
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
USOO5138459A United States Patent (19) 11) Patent Number: 5,138,459 Roberts et al. 45 Date of Patent: Aug. 11, 1992 (54) ELECTRONIC STILL VIDEO CAMERA Primary Examiner-David K. Moore WITH DIRECT PERSONAL COMPUTER(PC) Assistant Examiner-Tuan V. Ho COMPATIBLE DIGITAL FORMAT OUTPUT Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Paul W. Fish 75) Inventors: Marc K. Roberts, Burke; Matthew A. 57 ABSTRACT Chikosky, Springfield; Jerry A. An electronic still camera comprising a lens, shutter, Speasl, Vienna, all of Va. and exposure control system, a focusp and3. range control 73) Assignee- Earl puter Cameras, Inc.,h Chargecircuit, Couplea solid Devicestate imaging (CCD) throughdevice incorporatingwhich an image a is focused, a digital control unit through which timing (21) Appl. No.: 615,848 and control of an image for electronic processing is ilar. accomplished, an Analog-to-Digital (AMD) converter 22 Filed: Nov. 20, 1990 circuit to convert the analog picture signals into their 51) Int, C. ............................................... H04N 5/30 digital equivalents, a pixel buffer for collecting a com 52) U.S. C. .................................... 358/209; 358/140; plete row of an image's digital equivalent, a frame 358/93; 358/903 buffer for collecting all rows of an image's digital equiv 58) Field of Search ............... 358/903, 909, 209, 217; alent, and a selectively adjustable digital image com 364/521, 900, 200; 340/723,724; 382/56 pression and decompression algorithm that compresses the size of a digital image and selectively formats the (56) References Cited compressed digital image to a compatible format for U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS either the IBM Personal Computer and related architec 4,074,324 2/1978 Barrett ................................ si tures or the Apple Macintosh PC architecture as se 4,131,919 12/1978 Lloyd et al. 4 360/9 lected by the operator so that the digital image can be 4,302,776 l/1981 Taylor .............. .3587.60 directly read into most word processing, desktop pub 4,456,931 6/1984 Toyoda et al. ... ... 358/335 lishing, and data base software packages including 4,571,638 2/1986 Schneider et al. ... ... 359/293 means for executing the appropriate selected decom 4,614,977 4/1986 Kawahara et al. ................. 358/260 pression algorithm; and a memory input/output inter 4,758,883 7/1988 Kawahara et al. ................... 358/44 face that provides both temporary storage of the digital 4,803,554 2/1989 Pape was a season a poor Ase 358/209 image and controls the transmission and interface with 4,837,6284,829,383 6/19895/1989 SasakiHarase ...............et al. ... 358/2292 standardtandard PersonalP 1 CoComputer (PC)P memory storage 4,847,677 7/1989 Music et al .338/13 device such as a digital diskette. The digital diskette is 2503 i32 :/1990 Yamawaki m 358/209 removable inserted into the housing of the camera prior 4,905,092 2/1990 Koshiishi..... .338/296 top use in recording digital image data. 4,963,986 10/1990 Fukutama et ... 358/228 4,972,266 11/1990 Tani ................. ... 358/213.19 18 Claims, 11 Drawing Sheets PXEL FRAME COMPRESSION BUFFER BUFFER PROCESSOR 1 7 8 10 11 12 13 OPTICS MULTIPLEXER CONVERTERS DISK /O INTERFACE CONTRO DIGITAL CONTROL PANE UNIT DISK DRIVE 14 17 ASSEMBLY OPERATOR VARIABLE l CONTROL SWITCHES U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 1 of 11 5,138,459 SIGNAL TEMPOrary ?o MAGE PROCESS ar STORAGE SHUTTER, CONTROL MASS MEMORY EXPOSURE, CIRCUITRY DEVICE FOCUS CONTROL 5a CONTROL PANEL PRIOR ART FIG. 1 PXEL FRAME COMPRESSION BUFFER BUFFER PROCESSOR 1 7 8 10 11 12 13 IMAGE A OPTICS MULTIPLEXER CONVERTERS 9 DISK l/O INTERFACE CONTROL . DIGITAL CONTROL PANEL UNIT 17, DISK DRIVE 14 POWER ASSEMBLY SUPPLY OPERATOR VARIABLE CONTROL SWITCHES FIG. 2 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 2 of 11 5,138,459 56 AUDIO FILE INFO DATA 2 t AUDIO DATA ERCNEXT FILE IMAGE FILE INFO DATA R III E IMAGE DATA ERCIMAGENEXT ; , ; ; FILE 57 FORMAT APPLEs)0 IBM s(O1 OTHERs.10 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 3 of 11 5,138,459 FIG. 3 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 4 of 11 5,138,459 9. PXEL SELECT st SAMPLElies. ENABLE A/Dlar CONVERT ENALE CC — L CONVERT 480 PIXELS COMPLETE * - SAMPLEi.e. CLEARl. VERTICAL ADDRESS PB - ? W-e-CONTROL LINES PXEL BUFFER HORIZONTAL ADDRESS E FIG, 4. CONTROL NES " - is l * - FRAME BUFFER ENABLE FIG. 5B CLOCK lllll U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 5 of 11 5,138,459 SPEED 15 F25 FOOO FLASH IV SHUTTER EXPOSURE CONTROL V 7 FORMAT ENABLE shoot BMY APPLE DATA NES --ye f Y v FOCUS RANGE CONTROL CONTROL LINES V FULL COUNTER V STATUS HGH LOW COLOR BLACK V HALF INDICATOR WHITE MED lu N14s RESOLUTION MODE SWITCH SWITCH 512-BYTE HEADER picFRAME OPCODE PICTURE DATA OPCODE PICTURE DATA FIG. 6A FIG.6B END OF PICTURE U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 . Sheet 6 of 11 5,138,459 'SHQpT" 8 S-/v REMOTE SHOOT +V FULL COMMAND V HALF CAMERA BODY TO/FROM FIG. 6C COMPRESSION 12 PROCESSOR m 9 ... ENABLE & TOIFROM FRAME CONTROL LINES BUFFER 11 ADDRESS - 80 DECODER CONTROLTO/FROM E- as p HAAROH-9INTERFAct 2s PANEL ADDRESS 2 DATA LINES DISK l/O INTERFACE TO/FROM DISK DRIVE ASSEMBLY FIG. 7 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 7 of 11 5,138,459 NPUT IMAGE FRAME FRAME BUFFER STACK FROM 10 11A RGB TO PXEL BUFFER CHROMINANCE/LUMINANCE CONVERSION PERFORM DISCRETE MOST RECENT COSNE TRANSFORM IMAGE FRAME MAGE (DCT) (LAST) FRAMES FIRST MAGE FORMAT OUTPUT FRAME --TO 12 COEFFICIENTS COMPRESSION PROCESSOR PERFORM HUFFMAN RAM MEMORY CODNG PERFORM OUTPUT FORMATTING OUTPUT COMPRESSED IMAGE TO MEMORY FIG. 8 45- f12 - 6,2 = 2-21 Commercial Video Diskette Video Format Diskotto PC Still Video (Analog format) Translator (Digital format) Camera FIG. 10 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 8 of 11 5,138,459 SIT,LIMOVIVO ZZº/ZG2SM, ººt2=EET ISOS *NOISSE,WOO -----JOSSE(OO!!!!Fá U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 9 of 11 5,138,459 INITIALIZE I/O & READ DISK CHECK DISK FORMATTED BOOT SECTOR NOT FORMATTED READ DISK SIZE AND TYPE DISPLAY NOT FORMATTED POL CONTROL PANEL CODE FORMAT SETTINGS (A) DOES DISK NO HANG UNTIL FORMAT FORMAT AGREE DISPLAY MODE SELECT WITH C/P ERROR SETTING POLL CONTROL PANEL CODE FORMAT SETTINGS YES (A) LOOK-UP APPROPRIATE (B) FORMAT UTILITY AND OS DISPLAY FORMAT CODE PERFORMFORMAT DISPLAY FRAME INITIALIZATION STORAGE CAPACITY (B) HANG UNTIL MODE CHANGE OPERATOR RESET FIG. 12 TO (B) OF FIG. 3 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 10 of 11 5,138,459 C 60C 20-2 XY ". APPLE V1 D V IBM V2 +v- OTHER PC V3 10 11 12 VIDEO COMPRESSION SIGNAL PROCESSOR 13 DISKI/O INTERFACE 5 sk DRIVE FIG. 14A U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 1992 Sheet 11 of 11 5,138,459 FULL FRAME BUFFER SIGNAL DETECTED TRANSFER FRAME BUFFER CONTENTS TO MEMORY BLOCK N /O CHANNEL 13 READ SWITCH 17 POSITION DETERMINE PC FORMAT ACCESS IBM ACCESS OTHER PC FORMAT MEMORY ACCESS APPLE FORMA MEMORY LOCATION FORMAT MEMORY LOCATION LOCATION DETERMINE OETERMINE MAGE DATA FLE DETERMINE MAGE DATA FILE SIZE MAGE DATA FLE SZE READ READ COMPRESSION, COMPRESSION, MODE, AND COMPRESSION, MODE, AND FORMAT SWITCH MODE, AND FORMAT SWITCH CODES FROM CPU FORMAT SWITCH CODES FROM CPU 2O CODES FROM CPU 20 20 WRITE SWITCH WRITE SWITCH CODES AND OTHER WRITE SWITCH CODES AND OTHER FILE INFO TO HEADER CODES AND OTHER FILE INFO TO HEADER FILE INFO TO HEADER PACK IMAGE DATA PACK IMAGE DATA BYTES INTO IBM PACK (MAGE DATA BYTES INTO OTHER FORMAT WITH BYTES INTO APPLE PC FORMAT WITH OPCODE AS SHOWN FORMAT WITH OPCODE: OPCODE AS SHOWN N FIG, 3B AS SHOWN IN FIG 3B N FIG, .33 TRANSFER FORMATTED FILE TO DISKETTE 50 FIG, 14B READY FOR NEXT MAGE 5,138,459 1. 2 vert the image to a hard-copy print (a photograph) and ELECTRONIC STILL VIDEO CAMERAWTH utilize an electronic "scanner', a piece of equipment DIRECT PERSONAL COMPUTEROPC) that connects to a PC, which converts an image into a COMPATIBLE DIGITAL FORMAT OUTPUT digital format. The later technique is employed exten BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION sively within the desktop publishing industry. 1. Field of the Invention SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION This invention generally relates to an electronic still It is the object of this invention to provide an im video camera and in particular to an improved elec proved electronic still camera with operator selectable tronic still camera which converts a still picture of an O picture compression in one of a plurality of operator object or scene into an operator selectable compressed digital signal format for storage utilizing a compres selectable digital data formats recordable on a standard sion/decompression algorithm, such as the Joint Photo removeable magnetic diskette common to personal graphic Experts Group (JPEG) algorithm standard for computers. example, formatted into Personal Computer (PC) com 15 It is a further object of this invention to provide an patible format retaining the images' color information, improved electronic still camera that provides digital and stored on a PC compatible memory diskette. For image files for immediate and direct incorporation into example, the diskette can be a three and a half (3) inch popular word processing, desktop publishing, and other digital diskette. The digital diskette is removeable from software programs on PCs. the electronic camera for direct insertion into a PC 20 It is another object of this invention is to provide an which contains the previously loaded corresponding improved electronic still camera that, under user selec decompression algorithm whereby the digital image is tion, can record and store still images selectively com in a format compatible for immediate use with word pressed in a directly insertable digital memory storage processing, desk top publishing, data base, and multi device into a PC in either color or black and white media applications.