Patent ID: 8885067

Claim:
A multocular image pickup apparatus comprising: a plurality of image pickup units configured to pick up images; a distance calculation unit configured to calculate information regarding the distance to a captured object, the calculation of the information being performed based on an output image of a first image pickup unit, and an output image of at least one image pickup unit among the plurality of image pickup units, the first image pickup unit being the reference unit of the image pickup units, the at least one image pickup unit being different from the first image pickup unit; a multocular image synthesizing unit configured to generate synthesized image from the output image of the plurality of image pickup units, the generation of the synthesized image being performed based on the distance information for regions where the distance information could be calculated in the distance calculation unit; and a monocular image synthesizing unit configured to generate synthesized image from the output image of the first image pickup unit for regions where the distance information could not be calculated in the distance calculation unit, wherein the distance calculation unit is configured to calculate a first distance information regarding the distance to the captured object, the calculation of the first distance information being performed based on the output image of the first image pickup unit and the output image of a second image pickup unit, the second image pickup unit being different from the first image pickup unit, and in case that there is a region where the first distance information could not be calculated, for the region where the first distance information could not be calculated, the distance calculation unit is configured to recalculate, at least one time, information regarding the distance to the captured object, the recalculation of the information being performed based on the output image of an image pickup unit that was not used for calculating the distance among the plurality of image pickup units, and the output image of the first image pickup unit.