Patent ID: 6914629

Claim:
A method of operating a solid state image sensor for the acquisition of an image presented to the sensor in response to an asynchronous stimulus, wherein said image sensor is operated in conjunction with at least one detector which, directly or indirectly, detects said asynchronous stimulus, said image sensor is regularly reset so as to commence integration from a reset state of the sensor each time a predetermined period has elapsed, and an output from said at least one detector prior to the end of a current predetermined period determines whether the subsequent reset operation of said image sensor is inhibited or not in that if said output indicates the occurrence of said asynchronous stimulus then the subsequent reset operation of said image sensor is inhibited, and said image sensor is allowed to continue integration commenced after a last reset operation before the occurrence of said asynchronous stimulus, whereby image data captured by the image sensor after said last reset operation before the occurrence of said asynchronous stimulus is stored and used in the acquisition of said image, and image capture data therefore includes image data occurring prior to the occurrence of said asynchronous stimulus.