Patent ID: 7663476

Claim:
A surrounding image generating apparatus that changes a viewpoint of images taken by a plurality of image pickup devices mounted at different positions along a vehicle to generate a surrounding image showing areas around the vehicle as viewed from a virtual viewpoint located above the vehicle, the surrounding image generating apparatus comprising: a metering area determining unit operable to determine at least one overlapping area in which a shooting area of at least two of the plurality of image pickup devices are overlapped with each other, the at least one overlapping area being set as a metering area that facilitates calculation of an appropriate exposure for both of the at least two of the plurality of image pickup devices; an exposure calculating unit operable to calculate an appropriate exposure for both of the at least two of the plurality of image pickup devices on the basis of imaging signals associated with the metering area; and a surrounding image generating unit operable to generate the surrounding image, wherein focusing of the metering on the at least one overlapping area to facilitate the calculation of the appropriate exposures for both of the at least two of the plurality of image pickup devices results in acquiring images including the at least one overlapping area taken from both of the at least two of the plurality of image pickup devices having similar luminance values in the at least one overlapping area from which the surrounding image is generated and that difference in luminance of the at least one overlapping area shown in the images acquired from both of the at least two of the plurality of image pickup devices is alleviated without pixel compensation.