Patent ID: 8767062

Claim:
A face imaging system comprising: a projection unit configured to project light to a predetermined projection region in which a user's face is supposed to be located; an imaging unit configured to image a region including the projection region projected with the light from the projection unit; a proximity detection unit configured to detect approach of the user's face, according to an image captured with the imaging unit, relative to the projection unit; and a first projection control unit configured to cause the projection unit to stop or dim projection of the light when the proximity detection unit detects the approach of the user's face, wherein the imaging unit has a lens structure configured to cause blur in a region corresponding to an object in the image when the object approaches the projection unit, the proximity detection unit includes: an edge extraction unit configured to extract edge information from the image, the edge information reflecting a feature of an edge in the image, and an edge determination unit configured to determine whether the edge information extracted with the edge extraction unit has blur, the imaging unit is further configured to image the projection region to include a surrounding structure being constant in position relative to the imaging unit, the edge determination unit is further configured to make a comparison between the edge information on a background region corresponding to the surrounding structure in the image and the edge information on an unfixed region other than the background region, thereby to determine whether the edge information on the unfixed region has blur; and the face imaging system further comprises: a blooming region detection unit configured to detect that: a blooming region occurs entirely in pixels around a center of the image; or pixel values of the pixels entirely around the center of the image become greater than or equal to a blooming threshold, which is a predetermined large value representing the blooming region, wherein the proximity detection unit is further configured to determine that the user's face approaches the projection unit when the blooming region detection unit detects the blooming region or detects that the pixel values become greater than or equal to the blooming threshold.