Patent ID: 7956902

Claim:
An imaging device comprising: imaging means having an imaging element for receiving light from, and capturing an image of, a target object on an image plane thereof and converting the received light to an electrical signal, and also having an optical system for guiding the image of the target object on the image plane of the imaging element, so as to output image data of the captured image; control means for controlling respective units and elements of the imaging device; vertical reference line extracting means for extracting at least two vertical reference lines based on the image data output from the imaging means, the vertical reference lines serving as a vertical reference in a space to be imaged, which space to be imaged is an image space; vanishing point calculating means for calculating an intersection of the at least two vertical reference lines, which intersection is a vanishing point; inclined line generating means for generating a straight line, which straight line is a generated inclined line, connecting the vanishing point and a point in the captured image which corresponds to an intersection between an optical axis of the optical system and the image plane, which point is a target point; and inclination detecting means for detecting an inclination of the generated inclined line to a vertical axis positioned in a frame of the captured image and passing through the target point on the image plane, which vertical axis is an inclination reference line.