Patent ID: 7110031
Filing Date: 2006-09-19
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A solid state image pickup apparatus comprising: a solid state image pickup device having a number of color pixels disposed in a plurality of rows and columns in a pixel shift layout and generating and outputting pixel signals, said number of color pixels including at least three kinds of color pixels, color pixels of one of said at least three kind being distributed in a square lattice pattern aligned in row and column directions; a first signal processing unit for generating output pixel signals at at least some of said color pixels by using signals based on said pixel signals, said first signal processing unit generating a part of each output pixel signal directly from signals based on pixel signals of the color pixels of said one kind and generating another part of each output pixel signal through an interpolation process using signals based on pixel signals of color pixels of another of said at least three kinds, wherein, for each output pixel signal, the color pixels used in the interpolation process are located in rows above and below a row containing the color pixels of said one kind used in generating said output pixel signal, respectively; and a second signal processing unit for generating output pixel signals at interstitial positions of said color pixels by performing interpolation processes using signals based on pixel signals of said number of color pixels, the interstitial positions and the color pixel positions constituting a tetragonal lattice.