A system and method of automatically controlling exterior vehicle lights includes an image sensor and a controller to generate control signals. The control signals are derived based on information obtained from the image sensor as well as other detected parameters pertaining to the detected light source(s), the vehicle having the inventive control system, and the ambient environment. The control circuit may simply turn certain exterior lights on or off, or change the brightness, aim, focus, etc. to produce various beam patterns that maximize the illuminated area in front of the vehicle without causing excessive glare in the eyes of other drivers.

System for controlling exterior vehicle lights

A steganographic embedder associates data with a media signal by encoding the data, a link to the data, or a combination of both into the media signal. The embedder may be located in a media signal capture device or an external process or device (Fig. 2, 100). In one application, for example, an embedder process steganographically encodes data into a media signal as part of the process of uploading the media signal from the media signal capture device to an external device (Fig. 2, 106). In another applications, a media signal capture device includes a steganographic embedder that encodes data or a link to external metadata into the media signal at the time of recording (Fig. 3).

Authenticating metadata and embedding metadata in watermarks of media signals

A control system is disclosed for controlling an image array sensor and controlling communication between the image array sensor and a microcontroller by way of a serial communication interface. The control system is able to efficiently control various aspects of the image array sensor such as windowing, mode of operation, sensitivity as well as other parameters in order to reduce the data throughput. An important aspect of the invention relates to the fact that the control circuit can be rather easily and efficiently configured in CMOS with relatively few output pins which enables the control circuit to be rather easily and efficiently integrated with CMOS based image array sensors and even the microcontroller to reduce the part count and thus, the overall cost of the system.

Control circuit for image array sensors

Upon providing a network photograph service, a prompt service can be provided to a customer without losing the advantage thereof such as ease of understanding where to access and collective data management. A service center receiving an order of a printing service and a minilab or a special laboratory spread across a plurality of places are able to communicate through a network. The center server in the service center selects and assigns the laboratory for printing the ordered picture in response to an order information transferred from a customer via the network so that the printing processing can be carried out by the laboratory specified by the customer instead of the center server.

Network photograph service system

Continuously variable headlamps offer greater flexibility for roadway illumination but offer challenges in automatic control design. Each continuously variable headlamp has an effective illumination range varied by changing at least one parameter from a set including horizontal direction aimed, vertical direction aimed, and intensity emitted. A system for automatically controlling continuously variable headlamps on a controlled vehicle includes an imaging system capable of determining lateral and elevational locations of headlamps from oncoming vehicles and tail lamps from leading vehicles. The system also includes a control unit that can acquire an image from in front of the controlled vehicle. The image covers a glare area including points at which drivers of oncoming and leading vehicles would perceive the headlamps to cause excessive glare. The image is processed to determine if at least one oncoming or leading is within the glare area. If at least one vehicle is within the glare area, the headlamp illumination range is reduced. Otherwise, the headlamp illumination range is set to full illumination range.

Continuously variable headlamp control

An apparatus for increasing a digital camera image capture rate comprises an imaging device for capturing raw image data, a frame buffer for receiving the image data, a first RAM spooler for transferring the raw image data to a RAM disk, a first flash spooler for transferring the raw image data from the RAM disk to a flash memory, an image processor for processing and compressing the raw data, a second RAM spooler for storing the compressed image data into the RAM disk, and a second flash spooler for transferring the compressed image data from the RAM disk to the flash memory.

Apparatus and method for increasing a digital camera image capture rate by delaying image processing

A method and system for minimizing image naming conflicts when capturing a plurality of images in a digital camera (110). The method and system includes incrementing a count in response to an image being captured, the count being a non-repeating number representing the total number of images captured by the digital camera (110), and associating the count with the captured image to provide a unique image identifier.

A method and system for naming images captured by a digital camera

A method and system for managing a removable memory (354) used in a digital camera (110). The method and system includes creating a camera folder (402) on the removable memory (354) corresponding to the digital camera when the removable memory is first inserted into the computer (118) of the digital camera. When images are captured, the images are stored only in the folder, such that the removable memory (354) can be used with more than one digital camera without image name conflicts.

A method and system for managing a removable memory in a digital camera

A method and system for maintaining coherent image relationships within identified image groups in a memory system of a digital image capture device includes storing a plurality of groups of related images on a removable storage device in a hierarchical manner, and providing an alias identifier for an image file when the removable storage device has reached its storage capacity, wherein the alias identifier identifies the image file stored in a storage device of the digital image capture device. The method and system further includes providing the image file with a same file name and a substitute extension designation to correlate the image file on the storage device with an empty file of the same name on the removable storage device.

Method and system for coherent image group maintenance in memory

A system (10) and method for correlating processing data and image data within a digital camera device (14) comprises a capture device (24) for gathering image data, a data cell manager (95) for building a data cell (76) containing processing data and for linking the data cell to the image data, and a processor device (88) for processing and compressing the image data by using the processing data stored within the data cell.

Mike Masukawa

Papers

Apparatus and method for increasing a digital camera image capture rate by delaying image processing

A method and system for naming images captured by a digital camera

A method and system for managing a removable memory in a digital camera

Method and system for coherent image group maintenance in memory

System and method for correlating processing data and image data within a digital camera device