Patent ID: 7199820

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: a control unit adapted to determine whether said image pickup apparatus is set as a master camera; a communication unit adapted to (a) transmit a time stamp to another image pickup apparatus if it is determined by said control unit that said image pickup apparatus is set as the master camera, and (b) receive the time stamp generated in another image pickup apparatus set as the master camera if it is determined by said control unit that said image pickup apparatus is not set as the master camera, wherein the time stamp is used to synchronize frame synchronization signals generated in said image pickup apparatus and another image pickup apparatus; a time stamp generating unit adapted to generate the time stamp using time information provided by said communication unit if it is determined by said control unit that said image pickup apparatus is set as the master camera, wherein the time information is used to manage a communication cycle of said communication unit; a frame synchronization signal generating unit adapted to (a) generate a frame sychronization signal using the time stamp generated by said time stamp generating unit and time information if it is determined by said control unit that said image pickup apparatus is set as the master camera, and (b) generate frame sychronization signal using the time stamp received by said communication unit and the time information if it is determined by said control unit that said image pickup apparatus is not set as the master camera; and an image data generating unit adapted to generate image data using the frame sychronization signal generated by said frame sychronization signal generating unit.