Patent ID: 8457881

Claim:
An image capturing system for vehicle comprising: a current position detecting unit for detecting a current position; a map information storage unit for storing map information; an object-to-be-captured information storage unit for storing information about an object to be captured on a map shown by the map information stored in said map information storage unit as object-to-be-captured information; a camera for capturing an image of the object to be captured while a vehicle travels; an object-to-be-captured position determining unit for determining both a distance from the current position detected by said current position detecting unit to the object to be captured shown by the object-to-be-captured information stored in said object-to-be-captured information storage unit, and a direction of said object to be captured, on a basis of the map information stored in said map information storage unit; a camera control unit for controlling said camera to orient said camera toward the direction determined by said object-to-be-captured position determining unit, and to focus said camera on the determined distance; an image capture commanding unit for commanding said camera controlled by said camera control unit to capture an image; a determining unit for determining whether or not the image which is captured by said camera in response to the command from said image capture commanding unit is a clearly-captured one of said object to be captured; and an information storage unit for, when said determining unit determines that the image captured by said camera is a clearly-captured one of said object to be captured, storing the image therein, wherein the image capturing system includes an image capture possible position determining unit for, when the determining unit determines that the image captured by said camera is not a clearly-captured one of the object to be captured, determining whether or not the object to be captured is at a position where an image of the object to be captured can be captured by the camera, and the object-to-be-captured position determining unit determines both the distance from the current position detected by the current position detecting unit to the object to be captured and the direction of said object to be captured on a basis of the map information stored in the map information storage unit again when said image capture possible position determining unit determines that the object to be captured is at a position where an image of the object to be captured can be captured by the camera.