High resolution thin multi-aperture imaging systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9876952-B2
Application number	US-201615375090-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 11, 2016
Priority date	Nov 28, 2012
Publication date	Jan 23, 2018
Grant date	Jan 23, 2018

Abstract

A multi-aperture imaging system comprising a first camera with a first sensor that captures a first image and a second camera with a second sensor that captures a second image, the two cameras having either identical or different FOVs. The first sensor may have a standard color filter array (CFA) covering one sensor section and a non-standard color CFA covering another. The second sensor may have either Clear or standard CFA covered sections. Either image may be chosen to be a primary or an auxiliary image, based on a zoom factor. An output image with a point of view determined by the primary image is obtained by registering the auxiliary image to the primary image.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A multi-aperture imaging system comprising:
a) a first camera that provides a first camera image, the first camera having a first sensor with a first plurality of sensor pixels covered at least in part with a non-standard color filter array (CFA) used to increase a specific color sampling rate relative to a same color sampling rate in a standard CFA, wherein the nonstandard CFA includes a repetition of a n×n micro-cell where n=4 and wherein each micro-cell includes a BBRR-RBBR-RRBB-BRRB color filter order;
b) a second camera that provides a second camera image, the second camera having a second sensor with a second plurality of sensor pixels, the second plurality of sensor pixels being either Clear or covered with a standard CFA, wherein the second camera image has an overlap area with the first camera image; and
c) a processor configured to process the first and second camera images into a fused output image, wherein in the overlap area pixels of the second camera image are registered with corresponding pixels of the first camera image.

2. A multi-aperture imaging system comprising:
a) a first camera that provides a first camera image, the first camera having a first sensor with a first plurality of sensor pixels covered at least in part with a non-standard color filter array (CFA) used to increase a specific color sampling rate relative to a same color sampling rate in a standard CFA. wherein the non-standard CFA includes a repetition of a n×n micro-cell where n=6 and wherein each micro-cell includes a color filter order selected from the group consisting of RBBRRB-RWRBWB-BBRBRR-RRBRBB-BWBRWR-BRRBBR, BBGRRG-RGRBGB-GBRGRB-RRGBBG-BGBRGR-GRBGBR, RBBRRB-RGRBGB-BBRBRR-RRBRBB-BGBRGR-BRRBBR and RBRBRB-BGBRGR-RBRBRB-BRBRBR-RGRBGB-BRBRBR;
b) a second camera that provides a second camera image, the second camera having a second sensor with a second plurality of sensor pixels, the second plurality of sensor pixels being either Clear or covered with a standard CFA, wherein the second camera image has an overlap area with the first camera image; and
c) a processor configured to process the first and second camera images into a fused output image, wherein in the overlap area pixels of the second camera image are registered with corresponding pixels of the first camera image.

3. The multi-aperture imaging system of claim 1 , wherein the first camera is a Wide camera with a field of view FOV w and wherein the second camera is a Tele camera with a field of view FOV T smaller than FOV w .

4. A method of acquiring images by a multi-aperture imaging system, the method comprising:
a) providing a first image generated by a first camera of the imaging system, the first camera having a first field of view (FOV 1 );
b) providing a second image generated by a second camera of the imaging system, the second camera having a second field of view (FOV 2 ) such that FOV 2 <FOV 1 , the second image having an overlap area with the first image; and
c) fusing the first and second images into a fused image, wherein the fusing includes applying a registration process between the first and second images, the registration process including:
i. extracting a first Luma image from the first image
ii. extracting a second Luma image from the second image,
iii. applying low-pass filtering on the second Luma image in order to match its spatial frequency content to that of the first Luma image and to generate a low-pass second Luma image, and
iv. applying registration on the low-pass second Luma image and the first Luma image,

wherein the non-standard CFA includes a repetition of a n×n micro-cell where n=4 and
wherein each micro-cell includes a BBRR-RBBR-RRBB-BRRB color filter order.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein n=6 instead of n=4 and wherein instead of each micro-cell including a BBRR-RBBR-RRBB-BRRB color filter order, each micro-cell includes a color filter order selected from the group consisting of RBBRRB-RWRBWB-BBRBRR-RRBRBB-BWBRWR-BRRBBR, BBGRRG-RGRBGB-GBRGRB-RRGBBG-BGBRGR-GRBGBR, RBBRRB-RGRBGB-BBRBRR-RRBRBB-BGBRGR-BRRBBR and RBRBRB-BGBRGR-RBRBRB-BRBRBR-RGRBGB-BRBRBR.

Assignees

• Corephotonics Ltd

Inventors

• Shabtay Gal
• Cohen Noy
• Gigushinski Oded
• Goldenberg Ephraim

Classifications

• H04N25/135 Primary

  based on four or more different wavelength filter elements · CPC title

• H04N23/951 Primary

  by using two or more images to influence resolution, frame rate or aspect ratio · CPC title

• H04N25/133

  including elements passing panchromatic light, e.g. filters passing white light · CPC title

• H04N25/134

  based on three different wavelength filter elements · CPC title

• H04N23/843

  Demosaicing, e.g. interpolating colour pixel values · CPC title