Patent ID: 8310557

Claim:
A master camera array comprising: a circuit board having front and rear surfaces, the circuit board defining a plurality of camera sites on said front surface, a control data input connection, a data output connection and a data bus extending along the circuit board to said camera sites; a plurality of camera units, each such camera unit incorporating an imaging chip defining a plurality of pixels and a connection engaged with one of said camera sites so that each camera unit is connected to said data bus at one of said camera sites; data output circuitry connected between said camera sites and said data output connection for merging pixel data provided by said plurality of camera units into a common data output stream; and at least one illumination data capture unit mounted to said circuit board, said at least one illumination data capture unit incorporating a photosensitive chip such that said photosensitive chip may provide illumination data impinging on said photosensitive chip to said circuit board.