CN102572250A - Electronic device, image shooting device and method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses an electronic device, an image shooting device and a method thereof, wherein the image shooting method comprises the steps of shooting temporary images by an image shooting module, setting one of the temporary images as a basic image by a processing module, judging whether the difference between the temporary image and the basic image is greater than a threshold value or not, deleting the temporary image by the processing module when the difference between one of the temporary images and the basic image is greater than the threshold value, and finally carrying out image superposition on the rest temporary images and the basic image by the processing module to correspondingly generate an output image. The invention improves the definition of the output image generated after the image superposition.

Description

Electronic device, image capturing device and method thereof

technical field

The present invention relates to an electronic device, an image capturing device and a method thereof, in particular to an electronic device, an image capturing device and an electronic device with a mechanism for screening and superimposing images for image superposition to reduce noise and output clear images. its method.

Background technique

At present, when digital cameras are in operation, the problem of blurred images due to hand vibrations when taking pictures has always plagued photographers: when operating digital cameras that have generally been used, before taking photos, users often The lens vibrates or shakes due to caution or incorrect posture of holding the digital camera. In addition, as the volume design of digital cameras becomes more and more compact, the proportion of shaking photos taken by compact cameras due to hand vibration when the shutter is pressed will increase relatively. Therefore, the degree of hand vibration will affect the quality of the captured image: if it is small, the angle of the captured image will be slightly deviated and the result will not be correct; if it is large, the captured image will be blurred. Anti-shake camera comes out in order to overcome the foregoing problems.

The known anti-shake mechanism has multiple implementation methods, including using the relative movement of the lens mechanism to compensate for the vibration of the camera, controlling the aperture value and shutter opening time to suppress the hand-shake phenomenon, and using software to control the captured image. Signal processing is performed in order to restore the clarity of the image. The aforementioned optical anti-shake mechanism is to use the moving lens or the image sensing element to move horizontally or vertically to correct the skew caused by the hand shake, and the reverse correction produced by it can prevent the camera from producing blurred images due to shaking; and The digital anti-shake mechanism uses algorithms and image processing methods to correct blurred images caused by shaking.

As far as the digital anti-shake mechanism is concerned, multiple shooting methods are generally used to reduce noise, so as to be able to capture clear, non-fuzzy, and low-noise images in low-light environments or when the hand shake is severe. However, in order to produce high-quality output images, it is necessary to perform geometric correction on each image, so that the images can be correctly superimposed point-to-point, and then use image processing techniques to perform noise removal processing on the geometrically corrected images. Can produce low noise and clear images. However, most of the multi-image shooting techniques widely used in cameras currently process all the captured images together without any filtering mechanism to eliminate unsuitable images, resulting in uneven quality of the captured images. Therefore, both good and bad images will be used for denoising. Therefore, the wrong image may be treated as a good image, resulting in poor quality of the output image, which is better than a single image. The imagery is still poor.

Contents of the invention

Due to the problems of the above-mentioned known technologies, the purpose of the present invention is to provide an electronic device, an image capture device and its method to solve the problem of poor output image quality caused by the known technology that combines uneven quality and overlaps. question.

According to the object of the present invention, an image capturing device is proposed, which includes an image capturing module and a processing module. The image capturing module captures multiple temporary images, and the processing module sets one of the temporary images as a basic image, and judges whether the difference between the temporary image and the basic image is greater than a threshold. When the difference between one of the temporary images and the basic image is greater than a threshold value, the processing module deletes the temporary image, and superimposes the rest of the temporary images with the basic image to generate an output image correspondingly.

Wherein, the processing module geometrically aligns the base image with each temporary image, and calculates a first error value correspondingly. When the first error value is greater than a first threshold value, the processing module deletes the temporary image.

Wherein, the processing module further utilizes a histogram of the basic image and each temporary image to determine whether a second error value of each temporary image and the basic image is greater than a second threshold value, and when the second error value is greater than When the second threshold is reached, the processing module deletes the temporary image.

Wherein, after the image superimposition is performed by the processing module, brightness compensation is performed on the output image by digital gain or temporal interpolation.

Wherein, when all the temporary images are deleted, the processing module increases the brightness of the basic image and beautifies the basic image to form an output image.

According to the purpose of the present invention, an image shooting method is proposed, which includes taking a plurality of temporary images with an image shooting module, and setting one of the temporary images as a basic image with a processing module, and then processing The module judges whether the difference between the temporary image and the basic image is greater than a threshold. When the difference between one of the temporary images and the basic image is greater than the threshold value, the temporary image is deleted by the processing module, and the remaining temporary images and the basic image are superimposed by the processing module to generate an output image correspondingly .

Wherein, the image shooting method further includes using the processing module to geometrically align the basic image with each temporary image, and correspondingly calculating a first error value, and using the processing module to determine whether each first error value is greater than a first threshold value. When the first error value is greater than the first threshold value, the temporary image is deleted by the processing module.

Wherein, the image shooting method further includes using the processing module to use a histogram of the basic image and each temporary image to determine whether a second error value of each temporary image and the basic image is greater than a second threshold value. And when the second error value is greater than the second threshold value, the temporary image is deleted by the processing module.

Wherein, the image shooting method further includes performing brightness compensation on the output image by digital gain or temporal interpolation after the image superposition by the processing module.

Wherein, the image shooting method further includes, when all the temporary images are deleted, using the processing module to increase the brightness of the basic image. Then the base image is beautified by the processing module to form an output image.

According to the object of the present invention, an electronic device is further proposed, which includes a body and the aforementioned image capturing device, and the image capturing device is disposed in the body.

Wherein, the electronic device is a digital camera, a mobile phone with a camera function, a personal digital assistant (PDA) with a camera function, or a tablet computer with a camera function.

Based on the above, the electronic device, image capture device and method thereof of the present invention may have one or more of the following advantages:

(1) The electronic device, image capture device and method thereof can geometrically align multiple temporary images, and filter temporary images with poor quality according to the amount of alignment error, so as to improve the quality of the output image produced after image superimposition clarity.

(2) The electronic device, image capture device and method thereof can analyze the hierarchical distribution map of each temporary image, and filter the temporary images with poor quality according to the amount of error, which can improve the quality of the output image produced after image superimposition clarity.

Description of drawings

1 is a block diagram of an image capture device of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of an image capture device of the present invention;

3 is a schematic diagram of a second embodiment of the image capture device of the present invention;

4 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the electronic device of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of the image capturing method of the present invention; and

Fig. 6 is another flow chart of the image shooting method of the present invention

Detailed ways

Please refer to FIG. 1 , which is a block diagram of an image capturing device of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the image capture device 1 of the present invention includes an image capture module 10 , a storage module 11 and a processing module 12 . The image capture module 10 includes at least a photosensitive element such as a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor element (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor, CMOS) or a charge-coupled device (Charge-Coupled-Device, CCD), a lens and a mirror group, etc.; a storage module 11 It can be an embedded memory, an external memory card or a combination thereof; the processing module 12 is electrically connected to the image capture module 10 and the storage module 11, and can be a central processing unit (Central Processing Unit, CPU) or a microprocessor (Micro-Processing Unit, MPU). In some preferred embodiments, the image capture device 1 of the present invention can be a digital camera (Digital Camera) or a digital video camera (Digital Video Camera).

Wherein, the image capture module 10 captures a plurality of temporary images 20 and stores them in the storage module 11, and the processing module 12 sets one of the temporary images 20 as a basic image 21, and judges the temporary images 20 and Whether the difference of the base image 21 is greater than a threshold 30 . When the difference between one of the temporary images 20 and the basic image 21 is greater than the threshold value 30, the processing module 12 deletes the temporary image 20, and superimposes the rest of the temporary images 20 with the basic image 21 to generate an output accordingly. Image 22. Wherein, the threshold value 30 includes at least a first threshold value 300 and a second threshold value 301 .

In some preferred embodiments, the processing module 12 geometrically aligns the basic image 21 and each temporary image 20, and calculates a first error value 31 correspondingly. When the first error value 31 is greater than the first threshold value 300, The processing module 12 deletes the temporary image 20; in addition, in other preferred embodiments, the processing module 12 can use the basic image 21 and the histogram of each temporary image 20 to calculate each temporary image 20 and a second error value 32 between the basic image 21 , and determine whether each second error value 32 is greater than a second threshold value 301 . When the second error value 32 is greater than the second threshold value 301 , the processing module 12 deletes the temporary image 20 . After the processing module 12 superimposes the temporary images 20 and the basic images 21 to generate the output image 22, the brightness compensation of the output image 22 is performed by digital gain or temporal interpolation. .

Under some circumstances, when the condition of the temporary images captured by the image capturing module 10 is not good, all the temporary images 20 will be deleted. At this time, the processing module 12 increases the brightness of the basic image 21 and beautifies the basic image 21 to form an output image 22 . In practice, the output image 22 is preferably stored in the storage module 11 in a file format, and the temporary image 20 is stored in the storage module 11 in a data format. In addition, the output image 22 is preferably viewable by the user, while the temporary image 20 cannot be viewed by the user.

Please also refer to FIG. 2 , which is a schematic view of the first embodiment of the image capture device of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the image capture module 10 first continuously shoots three temporary images, and the processing module 12 or the user selects one of them as the basic image 210, so the remaining two are the basic images to be combined next. 210 Temporary images 200, 201 are geometrically aligned. It can be seen from the figure that the image content of the temporary image 201 is much different from that of the base image 210. The possible reasons are the image displacement caused by hand vibration, or too much noise due to the low ambient illumination, so that the geometry Bad alignment during alignment. In this embodiment, the temporary image 201 is generated when the camera is vertically displaced downwards after the user shakes his hand, so that the sun above is cut in half, and the image of the lake below is captured. During the process of geometric alignment, the processing module 12 calculates the geometric transformation parameters of the temporary images 200, 201 during alignment, and the processing module 12 generates a first error value 31 according to each geometric transformation parameter, and compares it with the first error value 31 A threshold value of 300 is used for comparison. If the difference between the images is too large, they cannot be aligned correctly, resulting in excessive errors. And when the first error value 31 exceeds the first threshold value 300, the processing module 12 determines that the geometric difference between the temporary image 201 and the basic image 210 is relatively large, which is not suitable for the subsequent image superposition process, so the processing module 12 is to delete the temporary image 201 from the storage module 11, and perform image superposition with the remaining temporary image 200 and the basic image 210.

Please refer to FIG. 3 , which is a schematic diagram of a second embodiment of the image capturing device of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the image capturing module 10 firstly shoots three temporary images, and the processing module 12 or the user selects one of them as the basic image 211, so the remaining two are to be processed with the basic image 211 next. Temporary images 202 and 203 of image content differences are analyzed with a histogram. It can be seen from the figure that the image content of the temporary image 203 is much different from that of the basic image 211. When the user is taking pictures, a pedestrian 3 intrudes into the image capturing range of the image capturing module 10, so that the temporary image 203 The hierarchical distribution diagram 2030 of the color of is very different from the hierarchical distribution diagram 2110 of the base image 211 , which means that the contents of the images are different. At this time, the processing module 12 determines that the image content of the temporary image 203 is far from that of the basic image 210, and is not suitable for the subsequent image superposition process, so the processing module 12 is about to delete the temporary image 203 from the storage module 11 , and perform image superimposition with the remaining temporary image 202 and the basic image 211 .

However, those with ordinary knowledge in the field of the present invention should understand that the methods for judging the difference between each temporary image and the basic image are not limited to the above two methods, and these two methods are only examples rather than limitations, and will be described here first.

And when the processing module 12 performs image superimposition on these temporary images and basic images to generate an output image, since some temporary images are deleted, the brightness of the superimposed output image is insufficient, that is, in In this embodiment, the original output image should have the combined brightness of three images, but one has been deleted at this time, so only 2/3 of the brightness remains in the output image after image superimposition. In order to solve this problem, the processing module 12 uses a digital gain method to directly increase the brightness of the output image by 1/3, so as to reach the original image brightness preset by the user when measuring light. In addition, the processing module 12 may also use temporal interpolation to find out the brightness value between the basic image and the temporary image that has not been deleted, and then perform brightness correction on the output image according to the brightness value. However, those skilled in the art of the present invention should understand that the methods for correcting the brightness of the output image are not limited to the above two methods, and these two methods are only examples rather than limitations, and will be described here first.

Under some circumstances, when all the temporary images captured by the image capture module 10 are not in good condition except the basic image, these temporary images will all be deleted. At this time, the processing module 12 increases the brightness of the basic image 21 (using digital gain method, etc.), and then beautifies the basic image to form and output an output image.

Please refer to FIG. 4 , which is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the electronic device of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the electronic device 4 of the present invention includes a body 40 , an input device 41 and an image capture device 1 . The image capture device 1 is disposed on the body 40 and electrically connected to the input device 41 . The image capturing device 1 includes an image capturing module, a storage module and a processing module. The detailed description of the image capturing device 1 has been described in detail above, so it will not be repeated here. However, it is worth mentioning that the electronic device 4 proposed by the present invention can be various mobile handheld devices, such as digital cameras, multimedia playback devices with camera functions, mobile phones with camera functions, smart phones (Smartphone) , a navigation device (Navigator), a tablet computer or a personal digital assistant (PDA) with a camera function, etc.

In this embodiment, the electronic device 4 of the present invention takes a smart phone as an example, which can be embedded with the image capture device 1 proposed by the present invention for taking pictures, so the user can use the input device 41 of the smart phone as a touch Control screen or physical buttons, etc., in the case of taking pictures, the electronic device 4 immediately starts the above-mentioned continuous shooting image screening action, thus greatly improving the anti-shake effect and improving the clarity of the output image. The smart phone disclosed in this embodiment is only an example and not a limitation. Those with ordinary knowledge in the technical field of the present invention can easily replace other devices with the image capture device 1 of the present invention, which will be described in advance.

Although the concept of the image capturing method of the present invention has also been described in the process of describing the image capturing device of the present invention, for the sake of clarity, a flow chart is still shown in detail below.

Please refer to FIG. 5 , which is a flow chart of the image capturing method of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the image capturing method of the present invention is applicable to an image capturing device. The image capturing device includes an image capturing module, a storage module and a processing module. The image capturing method includes the following steps:

(S1) Capture multiple temporary images with the image capture module and store them in the storage module;

(S2) using the processing module to set one of the temporary images as a basic image, and then using the processing module to determine whether the difference between the temporary image and the basic image is greater than a threshold;

(S3) When the difference between one of the temporary images and the base image is greater than a threshold value, delete the temporary images by the processing module;

(S4) judging by the processing module whether there is still a temporary image in the storage module;

(S5) When there is a temporary image in the storage module, use the processing module to overlap the remaining temporary image with the basic image to generate an output image correspondingly; and

(S6) Perform brightness compensation on the output image by the processing module through a digital gain method or an interpolation method.

And when the processing module judges in the step (S4) that there is no temporary image in the storage module, it enters into the step:

(S40) improving the brightness of the base image with the processing module; and

(S41) Beautifying the base image by the processing module to form an output image.

Please refer to FIG. 6 , which is another flowchart of the image capturing method of the present invention. As shown in the figure, step (S2) further includes the following steps:

(S20) Geometrically align the basic image with each temporary image by the processing module, and calculate a first error value correspondingly;

(S21) Using the processing module to determine whether each first error value is greater than a first threshold value;

(S22) When the first error value is greater than the first threshold value, delete the temporary image with the processing module;

(S23) Using the processing module to determine whether a second error value of each temporary image and the basic image is greater than a second threshold value by using a hierarchical distribution map of the basic image and each temporary image;

(S24) When the second error value is greater than the second threshold value, delete the temporary image by the processing module.

And when in step (S23), the second error value is not greater than a second threshold value, then proceed to step (S4); and after step (S24), then proceed to step (S4) and subsequent steps.

The detailed description and implementation of the image capturing method of the present invention have been described above when describing the image capturing device of the present invention, and will not be repeated here for brevity.

To sum up, the electronic device, image capture device and method of the present invention can geometrically align multiple temporary images, and filter temporary images with poor quality according to the amount of alignment error, which can improve the quality of images generated after image superimposition. The clarity of the output image; in addition, the present invention can also analyze the hierarchical distribution map of each temporary image, and filter the temporary images with poor quality according to the amount of error, so as to effectively solve the problem of overlaying known good and bad images. , causing the problem of poor output image quality.

The above descriptions are illustrative only, not restrictive. Any equivalent modification or change made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention shall be included in the scope of the patent application.

Claims (8)

1. An image shooting device, characterized in that: comprising: an image capture module, which captures a plurality of temporary images; and A processing module, which sets one of the plurality of temporary images as a basic image, and judges whether the difference between the plurality of temporary images and the basic image is greater than a threshold value, when the plurality of temporary When the difference between one of the images and the basic image is greater than the threshold value, the processing module deletes the temporary image, and superimposes the rest of the temporary images with the basic image to generate an output image correspondingly. 2. The image capture device according to claim 1, wherein the processing module geometrically aligns the basic image with each of the temporary images, and calculates a first error value correspondingly, when the second When an error value is greater than a first threshold value, the processing module deletes the temporary image. 3. The image capture device as claimed in claim 2, wherein the processing module further uses the basic image and a hierarchical distribution map of each of the temporary images to determine each of the temporary images and the Whether a second error value of the basic image is greater than a second threshold value. When the second error value is greater than the second threshold value, the processing module deletes the temporary image. 4 . The image capture device according to claim 1 , wherein after the image superposition by the processing module, brightness compensation is performed on the output image by digital gain or interpolation. 5 . 5. An image shooting method, characterized in that: comprising the following steps: Taking a plurality of temporary images with an image capturing module; using a processing module to set one of the plurality of temporary images as a basic image; Using the processing module to determine whether the difference between the plurality of temporary images and the basic image is greater than a threshold; deleting the temporary image by the processing module when the difference between one of the plurality of temporary images and the base image is greater than the threshold value; and Using the processing module to superimpose the rest of the temporary images with the basic image to generate an output image correspondingly. 6. The image capturing method according to claim 5, further comprising the following steps: using the processing module to geometrically align the base image and each of the temporary images, and correspondingly calculate a first error value, When using the processing module to determine whether each of the first error values is greater than the first threshold value; and When the first error value is greater than the first threshold value, the temporary image is deleted by the processing module. 7. The image capturing method according to claim 5, further comprising the following steps: When the plurality of temporary images are all deleted, using the processing module to increase the brightness of the base image; and The base image is beautified by the processing module to form the output image. 8. An electronic device, characterized in that: comprising: a body; and 1. The image capturing device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the image capturing device is disposed in the main body.

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