Primary-consistent soft-decision color demosaic for digital cameras (patent pending)

Bayer color mosaic sampling scheme is widely used in digital cameras. Given the resolution of CCD sensor arrays, the image Quality of digital cameras using Bayer sampling mosaic largely depends on the performance of the color demosaic process. A Common and serious weakness shared by all existing color demosaic algorithms is an inconsistency of sample interpolations in different primary color components, which is the culprit for the most objectionable color artifacts. To cure the problem we propose a primary-consistent color demosaic algorithm. The performance of this algorithm is further enhanced by a soft-decision sample interpolation scheme. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed framework of primary-consistent soft-decision color demosaic can significantly improve the image quality of digital cameras.