Patent ID: 7009644
Filing Date: 2006-03-07
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A method of detecting and correcting defective pixel data in raw data taken from an image sensor of a portable image capture device used to obtain a digitized image, wherein said raw data includes normal pixel data and defective pixel data, said method comprising: receiving at an intelligent host a raw data signal for each pixel in said image from said portable image capture device; computing for each pixel received from said image sensor a brightness value; computing for each pixel received from said image sensor a local brightness value; computing for each pixel received from said image sensor a local brightness deviation of said brightness value from said local brightness value; comparing, for each pixel received from said image sensor, its local brightness deviation to a deviation threshold and designating pixels having local brightness deviations greater than said deviation threshold as defective pixels; recording the location of said defective pixels in a statistical database; recording the frequency of occurrence of said defective pixels in said statistical database; and correcting the brightness value of said defective pixels, provided said correcting is warranted by trends from said statistical database, wherein the computing steps, comparing step, recording steps, and correcting step are performed by the intelligent host, wherein said correcting is achieved by replacing said defective pixel's brightness value by said defective pixel's local brightness value, wherein said detecting includes video subsampling, wherein using video subsampling said detecting is carried out on video data frames at a rate of one of every n video frames, the n being no less than 32.