Patent ID: 8723922

Claim:
An apparatus for capturing 3D images including a lens barrel having a first end where light enters the lens barrel and a second end, comprising: a lens disposed at a first end of the lens barrel; an image capture element adapted to capture an image projected thereon at the second end of the lens barrel, having an adjustable active region, the adjustable active region being a region that captures an image that is smaller in area than the total image capture area of the image capture element; a refracting lens positioned along the optical axis of the lens barrel and disposed between the lens and the image capture element, the refracting lens being mounted to a set of adjusting elements, the set of adjusting elements for adjusting the position of the edge of the refracting lens, wherein, when the set of adjusting elements adjust the position of the edges of the refracting lens to a first position, a light beam from a target object, effectively parallel to the optical axis, is refracted by the refracting lens to the center of the active region so that the refracted light beam represents a first stereoscopic image captured by the image capture element and having a first point of view and a first field of view and, when the set of adjusting elements adjust the position of the edges of the refracting lens to a second position different from the first position, the light beam from the target object, effectively parallel to the optical axis, is refracted by the refracting lens to the center of the active region so that the refracted light beam represents a second stereoscopic image captured by the image capture element and having a second point of view different from the first point of view and a second field of view different from the first field of view with both the first and second points of view and the first and second fields of view being different from a non-refracted image.