Patent ID: 9610891
Date: 2017-04-04
CPC Classifications: B60Q,B60R

Claim:
1. A vehicle illuminating apparatus that is configured to be mounted on a vehicle and that performs an illumination to assist in taking a plurality of images of the periphery of the vehicle, by a plurality of cameras of an image generating apparatus that generates a synthetic image viewed from a virtual viewpoint based on the images, the vehicle illuminating apparatus comprising: a plurality of light sources that illuminates a right or left side area of the vehicle; a housing in which the light sources are fixed and accommodated in a state where light axes of the light sources are directed to different directions from each other; and a controller that selectively activates and deactivates the light sources, wherein the plurality of light sources illuminating the right or left side area of the vehicle includes: wherein the housing, which includes the first light source, the second light source and the third light source, is configured to be attached to a right or left side of the vehicle, wherein the first light source, the second light source and the third light source are integrally accommodated in the housing, and the third light source is arranged at a center portion of the housing, wherein the first, second and third light sources are separate light sources, wherein a direction of a light axis of the first light source is inclined to the front side of the vehicle, a direction of a light axis of the second light source is inclined to the rear side of the vehicle, and a direction of a light axis of the third light source is inclined to a direction different from the front side and the rear side of the vehicle, and wherein the controller deactivates all of the light sources when an average luminance of the images captured by the plurality of cameras is higher than a predetermined threshold value, and selectively activates and one or more of the light sources when an average luminance of the images captured by the plurality of cameras is lower than a predetermined threshold value.