Patent ID: 7773143

Claim:
A color camera, comprising: at least three sub-cameras, each sub-camera including an imaging lens, a color filter, and an array of detectors; a combiner configured to combine images from the at least three sub-cameras to form a composite multi-color image, wherein the at least three sub-cameras include a total number of detectors N and a total number of different color sets X, wherein a first number of signals of a first color set is less than or equal to N/X and a second number of signals of a second color set is greater than N/X; and a differentiating element in a first sub-camera associated with the second color set to generate altered samples of the second color set from signals being output from a second sub-camera associated with the second color set, wherein resolution of a composite image of the second color set is greater than resolution of an individual sub-camera and a resolution of the composite image of the first color set is no greater than that of an individual sub-camera.