Patent ID: 7148926

Claim:
An image sensing apparatus for color image sensing, comprising: an image sensing element having a plurality of pixels that are arranged two-dimensionally so that each converts incident light into signal charges corresponding to the light amount; a color filter arrangement having a plurality of filter units that are arranged two-dimensionally wherein each of the plurality of filter units is made of a 2×2 arrangement of a first, a second, a third and a fourth color element and placed on the image sensing element so that each of the color elements corresponds to a pixel of the image sensing element; a driving circuit for driving the image sensing element such that the plurality of pixels of the image sensing element are grouped into a plurality of pixel blocks made of quadratic arrangements of odd number (2n+1, where n is an integer of 1 or more)× odd number (2n+1) of pixels, which are larger than the filter units, and for each of the plurality of pixel blocks, the signal charges of all pixels belonging to that pixel block are added together, wherein the pixel blocks adjacent to each other do not overlap at all; and a signal processing circuit for obtaining compressed color information for each of the pixel blocks from a result of the addition for each pixel block, taking 2×2 arrangements of the pixel blocks as large filter units, wherein each of the large filter units is made of (4n+2)×(4n+2) of pixels.