Specifications

Every pixel receives light of particular color only (red, green or blue). But
color image consists of pixels with all three colors specified. So it is
necessary to calculate other color from the values of neighboring pixels.
Covering pixels with such color mask and subsequent calculations of
remaining colors was invented by Mr. Bayer, engineer working at Kodak
company. This is why this color mask is called Bayer mask and the process
of calculation of missing color is called Debayer processing.
There are several algorithms for calculating missing color components of
individual pixels – from simply using of color from neighboring pixels (this
method provides quite coarse images) to more accurate methods like
bilinear or bicubic interpolation. There are even more sophisticated
algorithms like pixel grouping etc.
No G3 camera performs the Debayer processing itself. The raw image is
always passed to the host PC and processed by control software. It is also
possible not to perform Debayer filtering and save images in the raw form
for processing by some other software packages.
SIPS software implements bilinear Debayer interpolation. It is possible to
perform Debayer processing immediately when the image is downloaded
from the camera (color image is then immediately displayed and/or saved
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Illustration 23: Schematic diagram of color CCD detector