COLOR FILTER ARRAY WITH NEUTRAL ELEMENTS AND COLOR IMAGE FORMATION
First Claim
1. An image sensing device having an array of image sensors and a color filter structure disposed in relation to the image sensors, the filter structure comprised ofa plurality of neutral filter elements for passing a luminance component of an image;
- and color filter elements for passing color components of the image,wherein said color filter array has 55% to 92% of its elements comprised of neutral filter elements and the remaining elements comprising at least three types of color filter elements for passing the color components of the image.
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Abstract
The invention is directed to a method and a device for providing higher performance imaging capture using a novel pattern of a color filter array that enables one to achieve higher sampling rate for luminance than for chrominance. A majority of the elements in the CFA are neutral elements. Gray scale images with high spatial resolution and high light sensitivity can be acquired from image samplings at these neutral elements. The remaining elements of the CFA are color filtered ones. Color elements cluster to form a repeating block pattern. Color images with low spatial resolution but low color artifacts can be acquired from image samplings at these color filter elements. The color images are transformed into a luminance-chrominance color space, and the luminance components are replaced with the gray scale images to regain high spatial resolution.
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Citations
18 Claims
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1. An image sensing device having an array of image sensors and a color filter structure disposed in relation to the image sensors, the filter structure comprised of
a plurality of neutral filter elements for passing a luminance component of an image; - and color filter elements for passing color components of the image,
wherein said color filter array has 55% to 92% of its elements comprised of neutral filter elements and the remaining elements comprising at least three types of color filter elements for passing the color components of the image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
- and color filter elements for passing color components of the image,
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11. A method of forming a color image, comprising the steps of:
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a) providing an image sensing device having an array of light-sensitive elements in juxtaposition with a color filter array having varying filter properties, which includes a plurality of elements sensitive to a spectral region corresponding to luminance; and
remaining elements sensitive to color components of the image;b) employing the image sensing device to produce a sampled image; c) calculating the missing luminance pixel values in the sampled image to generate a complete gray scale image; d) calculating the missing color pixel values in the sampled image to generate a full color image having red, green and blue pixel values; and e) resizing the color image to be the same size of the gray scale image. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14)
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- 15. An image sensing device having an array of image sensors in juxtaposition with a color filter array having varying filter properties which is integrated into a semi-conductor device that is connected to a second semiconductor device that carries out certain computations and outputs to viewers, storage devices, and the like wherein the filter array is further comprised of neutral filter elements sensitive to a spectral region corresponding to luminance of light, and blocks of filter elements that selectively pass at least three different spectral qualities of light sufficient to reconstruct full color images.
Specification