The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 08, 2003
Filed:
Jan. 26, 1999
Albert D. Edgar, Austin, TX (US);
Steven C. Penn, Georgetown, TX (US);
Applied Science Fiction, Inc., Austin, TX (US);
Abstract
Surface defect correction technology for photographic images requires an infrared scan along with a conventional color scan. In the present invention, the additional infrared scan needed for surface defect correction is obtained by adding a line of sensors specific to infrared light to a conventional multilinear color sensor array. The invention teaches a practical mode of distinguishing infrared light using a dichroic prism placed over the sensor. This mode has the additional advantage of placing the infrared-specific sensor line in a displaced focus plane to match conventional lenses. Adding a sensor line to a conventional trilinear sensor array requires a quadrilinear array topology. In addition to the direct quadrilinear topology, the invention teaches a method of obtaining full color image information with only two linear sensor lines by interstitially mixing red and blue sensors on a single sensor line, which, in conjunction with the additional infrared line, results in a conventional trilinear sensor topology with a different filter arrangement.