Patent Document ID: 8111949
Application ID: 11067087
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An image processing device comprising: a camera which is operable at a low resolution, and at a high resolution; an initializing unit which sets the camera to initially operate at the low resolution to capture a plurality of images of an object at the low resolution; a change determination section which determines whether there is any change in the images captured by the camera at the low resolution; a resolution setting section which maintains the camera operating at the low resolution when the change determination section determines that there is a change in the images captured by the camera at the low resolution, and which sets the camera to operate at the high resolution to capture an image of the object at the high resolution when the change determination section determines that there is no change in the images captured by the camera at the low resolution; a correction parameter extraction section which extracts parameters for performing image correction of the image captured by the camera at the high resolution, from a last-captured image captured by the camera at the low resolution just before the resolution setting section sets the camera to operate at the high resolution; a correction parameter conversion section which converts a low scale of the parameters extracted from the last-captured image captured by the camera at the low resolution into a high scale corresponding to the high resolution; and an image correction section which corrects a luminance and color of the image captured by the camera at the high resolution by using the parameters with the high scale converted by the correction parameter conversion section; wherein the correction parameter extraction section includes: a luminance histogram generation section which generates a luminance histogram showing distribution of luminance in the last-captured image captured by the camera at the low resolution, by counting a number of pixels included in the last-captured image for each luminance value, a color difference histogram generation section which generates a color difference histogram showing distribution of color differences in the last-captured image captured by the camera at the low resolution, by counting a number of pixels included in the last-captured image for each color difference, and an image effect correction parameter obtaining section which obtains a maximum value, a minimum value, and a peak value of luminance from the luminance histogram generated by the luminance histogram generation section, and a peak value and an average value of color difference from the color difference histogram generated by the color difference histogram generation section, thereby obtaining image effect correction parameters including the maximum value, the minimum value, and the peak value of luminance, and the peak value and the average value of color difference, and wherein the image correction section includes a luminance/color difference correction section which corrects luminance and color differences of the image captured by the camera at the high resolution, by adjusting luminance and color differences of each pixel included in the image by using the image effect correction parameters obtained by the image effect correction parameter obtaining section.