A sensor control apparatus includes a readout control circuit and a region setting circuit. The readout control circuit controls an event-driven vision sensor including a sensor array that includes sensors that generate event signals when a change in incident light intensity is detected, in such a manner that the event signals are read out at a first frequency in a first region on the sensor array and that the event signals are read out at a second frequency higher than the first frequency in a second region on the sensor array. The region setting circuit changes at least part of the first region to the second region on the basis of the number of first event signals acquired by the readout in the first region within a given period of time or changes at least part of the second region to the first region on the basis of the number of second event signals acquired by the readout in the second region within the given period of time.

The invention relates to pixel circuit and an operating method thereof, comprising—a front-end circuit (1) comprising a single photodiode (PD) and having an output (4), said front-end circuit (1) being configured for delivering on said output a photoreceptor signal derived from a light exposure of said single photodiode (PD);—a transient detector circuit (2) configured for detecting a change in said photoreceptor signal delivered on said output (4);—an exposure measurement circuit (3) configured for measuring said photoreceptor signal delivered on said output (4) upon detection by the transient detector circuit (2) of a change in the photoreceptor signal. The invention also relates to an image sensor comprising a plurality of pixel circuits

Systems and methods facilitate digital zoom of live video based on remote user instructions. A user of a remote device may desire to zoom in on a particular aspect of a copy of a full image captured by a sensor at a first resolution and communicated to the remote device at a second resolution less than the first resolution. A selection that corresponds to a user-selected area of the copy and corresponding to a portion of the sensor is received by the sensor. Based on the selection, an instruction is generated to capture a second electronic image utilizing the portion of the sensor with the first resolution. Thus, rather than zooming into the first electronic image at the second resolution, the second electronic image corresponding to the portion of the sensor is captured at the first resolution and then converted to the second resolution, resulting in a higher resolution zoom.

Improvement of noise characteristics is achievable. A solid-state imaging device according to an embodiment includes a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements (333) arranged in a two-dimensional grid shape in a matrix direction and each generating a charge corresponding to a received light amount, and a detection unit (400) that detects a photocurrent produced by the charge generated in each of the plurality of photoelectric conversion elements. A chip (201a) on which the photoelectric conversion elements are disposed and a chip (201b) on which at least a part of the detection unit is disposed are different from each other.

In order to perform image processing in which relative positional deviation of image outputs between two image pickup units is suppressed, an image pickup apparatus comprises: an imaging device that has a first image pickup unit configured to perform imaging in a first cycle and generate a first image signal, and a second image pickup unit configured to perform imaging in a second cycle shorter than the first image pickup unit and generate a plurality of second image signals; a relation degree information generation unit configured to generate relation degree information between the first image signal and the second image signal based on overlap between an exposure time period in the first image pickup unit and an imaging timing in the cycle of the second image pickup unit; a region selection unit configured to select a specific region from among the second image signals based on the relation degree information generated by the relation degree information generation unit; and an image processing unit configured to perform predetermined image processing on the first image signal based on the specific region selected by the region selection unit.

An apparatus includes a dynamic vision sensor (DVS) configured to output an asynchronous stream of sensor event data, and a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor configured to output frames of image data. The apparatus further includes a hybrid feature handler configured to receive, as an input, one or more of a DVS output or a CMOS image sensor output, and provide tracked features to a visual-inertial simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) pipeline performing inside-out device tracking, and a sensor scheduler configured to switch off the CMOS image sensor based on a current value of one or more CMOS control factors.

There is provided an optical sensor including a pixel matrix and a readout circuit. The pixel matrix includes multiple pixels arranged in a matrix, and each of the multiple pixels outputs temporal difference pixel data The readout circuit sequentially reads the pixel matrix using a readout block, and performs the hybrid difference calculation on the temporal difference pixel data of pixels within the readout block. Accordingly, the output of the readout circuit is the data accomplishing temporal difference and spatial difference.

To reduce power consumed when the display magnification of an image is changed. A digital camera includes a display unit having a first display region in which a first image is displayed and a second display region in which a second image is displayed, an image capture unit having a first image capture region in which first image data indicating the first image is generated and a second image capture region in which second image data indicating the second image is generated, magnification change units that change the display magnifications of the first and second images displayed on the display unit, and an image capture control unit that when the magnification change units change the display magnifications, changes the charge accumulation conditions or reading conditions of the first and second image capture regions.

An image sensor includes an active pixel array including a number of pixels and image sensor control circuitry configured to perform a read operation only on a subset of the pixels of the active pixel array such that pixels not in the subset remain inactive. By reading out only the subset of pixels in the active pixel array and keeping the remaining pixels inactive, the temperature of the active pixel array may be reduced compared to a conventional read out process, thereby reducing thermal noise in the resulting pixel data.

A sensor device includes an array sensor that includes a plurality of visible light or invisible light imaging elements arranged one-dimensionally or two-dimensionally, an image processing unit that performs image processing for image signals obtained by image capturing using the array sensor, and a threshold setting unit. The threshold setting unit sets a threshold used for parameter setting for all or some of parameters used for image capturing processing associated with image capturing performed by the array sensor or image processing performed by the image processing unit to achieve a process using the parameter changed on the basis of the threshold.