Patent ID: 8111299

Claim:
An image processing apparatus that receives a mosaic input image and subjects the mosaic input image subject to a series of image processing to generate a full color output image, the image processing apparatus comprising a memory and a processing unit having: a luminance-chrominance difference component computation module configured to calculate both vertical and horizontal luminance-chrominance difference components for each pixel of the mosaic input image; a luminance-chrominance difference component enhancement module configured to calculate enhanced versions of both vertical and horizontal luminance-chrominance difference components for each pixel of the mosaic input image; an edge direction detection module configured to evaluate the variations in the enhanced luminance-chrominance difference components in order to create an edge directional map indicating the direction in which demosaicking should be performed; a luminance component interpolation module configured to interpolate a G component for each of the original R and B components using the edge directional map; a chrominance component interpolation module configured to interpolate an R component for each of the original G and B components and a B component for each of the original R and G components; and a chrominance component enhancement module configured to enhance the interpolated R and B components using the edge directional map; and wherein the luminance-chrominance difference component computation module is configured to calculate both vertical and horizontal luminance-chrominance difference components Δ v and Δ h for each pixel (r,s) of the mosaic input image z according to the following equations: Δ ( r , s ) v = { z ( r , s ) - ( z ( r - 1 , s ) + z ( r + 1 , s ) ) / 2 for ⁢ ⁢ ( odd ⁢ ⁢ r , odd ⁢ ⁢ s ) ⁢ ⁢ and ( even ⁢ ⁢ r , even ⁢ ⁢ s ) ( z ( r - 1 , s ) + z ( r + 1 , s ) ⁢ ) / 2 - z ( r , s ) otherwise ; and ⁢ ⁢ Δ ( r , s ) h = { z ( r , s ) - ( z ( r , s - 1 ) + z ( r , s + 1 ) ) / 2 for ⁢ ⁢ ( odd ⁢ ⁢ r , odd ⁢ ⁢ s ) ⁢ ⁢ and ( even ⁢ ⁢ r , even ⁢ ⁢ s ) ( z ( r , s - 1 ) + z ( r , s + 1 ) ⁢ ) / 2 - z ( r , s ) otherwise .