Patent ID: 7724286
Filing Date: 2010-05-25
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image pickup apparatus for synthetically generating a first image, the first image being a whole image of an entire object, the apparatus comprising: an image pickup section that sequentially changes an image pickup direction and picks up images, each image including parts of the object; a reading section that reads second images, each second image having a predetermined width and constituting a part of each image, the predetermined width being selected so that the part of each image constitutes less than all of each image and being smaller than the corresponding image captured by the image pickup section; a defining section that defines a reading range of each second image; a relative position identifying section that identifies a relative position of each second image relative to the first image; and a synthesizing section that generates the first image by sequentially and synthetically combining the second images; the defining section being adapted to determine a quantity of movement of each second image by referring to the relative position thereof and define the reading range of the second image to be read out next according to the quantity of movement, wherein the predetermined width of the second images includes an area of overlap between adjacent second images.