Patent ID: 8718460

Claim:
A range-finding device comprising: a plurality of image capturing elements that are provided at a predetermined interval; a lens that forms an image of a range-finding object on each of the image capturing elements; a distance calculating unit that calculates a distance to the range-finding object for each of a plurality of range-finding areas that are set on the respective image capturing elements based on an image signal output from each of the range-finding areas according to the image that is formed; a distribution generating unit that generates a distribution of the calculated distances; and a position specifying unit that specifies a position where the range-finding object is present in the range-finding area based on the distribution of the distances, wherein the position specifying unit calculates gradients of the distances of the respective range-finding areas in a column and a row in which the range-finding areas are arranged, and specifies a position of the range-finding object in the range-finding area based on the gradients of the distances, and wherein the range-finding device further comprises an indoor/outdoor determining unit that determines whether the range-finding object is one of indoors and outdoors based on the gradients in the column of the range-finding areas.