Television – Camera – system and detail – With electronic viewfinder or display monitor
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-02
2002-06-04
Garber, Wendy R. (Department: 2612)
Television
Camera, system and detail
With electronic viewfinder or display monitor
C348S118000, C348S148000, C348S333010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06400405
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for watching around a vehicle and more particularly to an apparatus for allowing a driver within a vehicle such as an automobile to observe scenes and the like on both left and right sides of the vehicle.
The present invention also relates to an apparatus for watching around a vehicle by picking up an image in a dead angle area around the vehicle in order to display the image within the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
When an automobile approaches an intersection, it will be necessary for a driver to ensure safety on left and right sides. At any intersection offering poor lateral visibility, however, the driver has had to cause the vehicle to enter the intersection zone a little bit so as to make sure of safety on left and right sides. At that time, the driver needs to pay careful attention to moving the vehicle into the intersection zone and also making sure of safety by directly watching scenes on both the left and right sides after entering the intersection zone, which has mentally given the driver a burden.
In order to reduce the aforementioned burden, there has recently been proposed a visual observation apparatus in such a system as to mount an image pick-up unit on the hood, front grill and bumper of an automobile and by using the image pick-up unit to take in scenes on left and right sides of the vehicle so that images about left and right sides thereof may simultaneously be displayed on a display unit provided within the vehicle.
Moreover, there has also appeared an apparatus for displaying a mask image that is divided into left and right images in order to improve the discriminability between the left and right images in a case where the left and right images are simultaneously displayed on the display unit.
The masking systems disclosed in JP-A-10-104765 have adopted as what marks off the left image from the right one by compounding each of the left and right images and a window type mask using a trimming image and as what limits a range of pick-up visual fields corresponding to the mask position. The mask area of a mask image has heretofore been displayed in a single color such as black.
In such a case that the mask area is displayed in a dark color of black or the like, the drawback is poor visibility in that though the boundary between the left and right images and the mask image is distinctly recognized because the left and right images are brightly displayed in the daytime time zone, a dark portion (black portion) of each of the left and right images becomes greater in a time zone where the outside of the vehicle is dark and this makes it difficult to clearly recognize the boundary between the left and right images and the mask image.
In addition, it will be unnecessary to display both the left and right sides by means of any display device during normal cruising other than, for example, entering any intersection providing poor lateral visibility. In order to reduce power consumption, there has also been proposed an apparatus for stopping the supply of power to power supply circuits and image output circuits of the image pick-up unit such as CCD cameras whenever the vehicle travel speed, or the vehicle speed exceeds a predetermined level.
In the conventional apparatus for watching around a vehicle, however, electric power is supplied simultaneously to the power supply switch of an image pick-up means such as a CCD camera and an image output circuit in cases where the vehicle is traveling at a predetermined speed or lower, which results in taking a certain time to start the power supply within the image pick-up unit such as a CCD camera and to initialize an internal microcomputer and an LSI; namely, taking as long as about one second. During this time, the operation of an image signal tends to become unstable and as a normal signal is not output, a noise image is displayed in a display unit. The shortcoming is that display quality is deteriorated.
By the way, an apparatus for watching around a vehicle of the sort mentioned above is used to watch around a vehicle by causing images around the vehicle to be displayed during the travel of the vehicle on narrow streets offering poor visibility. However, the display of such images becomes unnecessary during the travel of the vehicle offering unobstructed view. Therefore, it is needed to switch the on and off states of displaying images around the vehicle by the apparatus for watching around a vehicle.
Consequently, an operating switch for switching the on and off states of the display of images around a vehicle is provided in the prior art to such an apparatus for watching around a vehicle so that a driver may operate the switch (first prior art).
Further, information on spots with poor visibility is included in car navigation maps to allow an apparatus for watching around a vehicle to decide whether the display of images around a vehicle will be needed on the basis of positional information indicating the present position of the vehicle by means of the information on spots with poor visibility, GPS and the like, whereby switching the on and off states of image display can be conducted automatically (second prior art).
However, the first prior art develops a problem arising from troublesome operation of switching the on and off states of the display of images around the vehicle.
With respect to the second prior art, though switching the on and off states of the display of images around the vehicle is automatically conducted, information on spots with poor visibility is needed to be included in the map information. Moreover, the problem is that an expensive system is also needed to detect the present position of the vehicle with precision in order to precisely decide whether or not the display of peripheral images will be needed, which results in increasing equipment cost.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for watching around a vehicle so designed to improve the visibility of the boundary between picked-up images and a mask image.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for watching around a vehicle by effectively preventing a noise image from being displayed on a display unit in order to improve display quality at the same time.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a low-cost apparatus for watching around a vehicle capable of switching the on and off states of the display of images around a vehicle precisely and automatically depending on the visibility around the vehicle.
To technically solve the foregoing problems, there is provided an apparatus for watching around a vehicle according to the invention using an image pick-up unit to be mounted on the exterior of the vehicle to pick up images of the surroundings of the vehicle so that the images thus picked up thereby together with a mask image which is superimposed on the picked-up images can be displayed on a display unit provided within the vehicle, which is characterized in that the apparatus for watching around the vehicle includes a light-to-dark decision unit for deciding the lightness outside the vehicle; the display color of the mask image is switchable from one to another; and the display color of the mask image is set switchable from one to another according to a light-to-dark decision signal from the light-to-dark decision unit.
The apparatus for watching around a vehicle functions as what picks up both left and right surroundings of the vehicle, causing the left and right images thus picked up to be displayed on the display unit separately or simultaneously, and also displaying the mask image in a manner specifying the left or right image.
In the apparatus for watching around a vehicle, a plurality of colors including light and dark colors are provided as the display color of the mask image, and the display color of the mask image may be switched to the dark color when the luminous intensity outside the vehicle is decided to be hig
Mishima Tomoyuki
Okada Jun
Tomida Takayuki
Autonetworks Technologies Ltd.
Garber Wendy R.
Whipkey Jason
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