Patent ID: 7738728

Claim:
An image-processing method to correct a distortion of a signal representing an image taken by an image-taking device, the distortion caused by a positional change of the image-taking device at a photographing time of the taken image, said method comprising: (a) dividing a frame of said taken image into a plurality of image sub-segments, wherein each of the plurality of image sub-segments includes a plurality of lines having a start line and a designated line; (b) detecting a rate of a positional change for each of said plurality of image, sub-segments, the positional change occurring in at least one of a horizontal direction and a vertical direction at the photographing time of the taken image, wherein each rate of a positional change for each of said plurality of image sub-segments is based on a movement velocity vector detected by a velocity vector sensor; (c) determining at least one direction component of the detected rate of positional change for each of said plurality of image sub-segments; (d) for at least one designated line: (i) determining which one of the plurality of image sub-segments is an image sub-segment including said designated line; (ii) selecting a direction component of a detected rate of positional change corresponding to said image sub-segment including said designated line; (iii) calculating a time-integration value for said designated line by integrating the direction component of the detected rate of positional change corresponding to said image sub-segment including said designated line along a time axis over a data-outputting delay time between said start line and said designated line; (iv) correcting a distortion of the designated line caused by said positional change based on said time-integration value; and (v) outputting, by a display processing section, a corrected signal representing the taken image.