Patent ID: 8896719

Claim:
A camera array, comprising: a plurality of cameras configured to capture images of a scene, where each camera comprises: optics comprising at least one lens element and at least one aperture; and a sensor comprising a two dimensional array of pixels and control circuitry for controlling imaging parameters; and at least one spectral filter located within the camera, where each spectral filter is configured to pass a specific spectral band of light; and a controller configured to control operation parameters of the plurality of cameras; an image processing pipeline module; wherein one of the plurality of cameras is a central camera and the plurality of cameras forms a two dimensional array of cameras incorporating at least a 3×3 configuration of cameras comprising: a camera having a green filter at the center of a 3×3 configuration of cameras; two cameras having red filters located on opposite sides of the 3×3 configuration of cameras; two cameras having blue filters located on opposite sides of the 3×3 configuration of cameras; and four cameras having green filters surrounding the central camera having a green filter; and wherein images captured by the plurality of cameras include different occlusions sets, where the occlusion set of a first camera is the portion of a scene visible to a second camera in the plurality of cameras that is occluded from the view of the first camera; and wherein the image processing pipeline module comprises a parallax confirmation and measurement module configured to measure parallax using images captured by the plurality of cameras by: detecting parallax-induced changes that are consistent across all of the cameras in the two dimensional array of cameras taking into account the position of the cameras; and ignoring pixels in the images captured by the plurality of cameras that are in the occlusion set of the central camera.