Patent ID: 8654194

Claim:
A distance measuring apparatus for determining a distance to an object, comprising: a plurality of optical systems for forming images of the object; and an image capturing section having a plurality of image capturing areas which are associated with the plurality of optical systems on a one-to-one basis, the image capturing section being configured to convert images of the object formed in respective ones of the image capturing areas through the plurality of optical systems to electric signals, the distance to the object being determined based on a parallax between the images of the object formed through the plurality of optical systems, wherein each of the plurality of optical systems includes n lens surfaces, where n is an integer not less than 2, a direction of a decentration is identical among at least one pair of the plurality of optical systems, and the direction of the decentration is expressed by a vector which originates from a central axis that passes through a center of a vertex of an i th lens surface of one lens and which extends to a central axis that passes through a center of a vertex of a j th lens surface of the one lens (counting from the object side), where i and j are different integers each of which is not less than 1 and not more than n.