US 5946030

Patent Overview: US5946030A

Title: Apparatus and Method for Electronic Image Centering

Patent Number: US5946030A
Application Number: US08/184,794
Inventor: Alan Neal Cooper
Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated (original and current, per the source)
Priority/Filing Date: 1994-01-21
Publication (Grant) Date: 1999-08-31
Legal Status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2016-08-31)

Purpose
The invention addresses "bore sight error"—misalignment between the center of an image sensor's image area and the center of the displayed image. The source states that manual physical alignment is difficult and nearly impossible because one pixel is approximately eight microns, making the manual process "slow, tedious, expensive and unsatisfactory." The disclosed apparatus and method provide electronic image centering to "substantially eliminate the disadvantages associated with manual image sensor adjustments."

Plain-Language Scope
The apparatus applies to an image sensor having an image area for receiving light to form image data. A storage area receives lines of image data in response to an image area gate signal; a serial register receives successive lines in response to a storage area gate signal and serially outputs them in response to a serial register gate signal. A timing controller generates these gate signals plus display timing signals, and adjusts timing relationships in response to vertical and horizontal adjust values from an operator input device.

The method centers image data by altering timing relationships: vertical shifting is achieved by changing timing between the image-data transferring step and the displaying step in response to a vertical adjust value; horizontal shifting by modifying timing between serial reading and displaying in response to a horizontal adjust value. Embodiments are described for frame transfer, interline transfer, and line addressable image sensors. This approach uses image sensors with a larger-than-required image area so that centering proceeds by limited vertical and horizontal shifting.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5946030](/patent/US5946030)/en

What the excerpt does not establish
The excerpt is partial (truncated mid-sentence in the frame transfer description). It does not provide full claim text, the complete specification, all figures, or the exact claims defining the scope. Classifications listed include H04N17/002, H04N23/80, H04N23/81, and several H04N25 subclasses. No litigation, ownership transfer, validity, or prior-art analysis is offered or should be inferred.