Patent ID: 7612822

Claim:
A multispectral image capturing apparatus, comprising: a half mirror configured to divide light from an image capturing lens into two light paths; a band-pass filter configured to modulate a spectral characteristic of one portion of the light divided by the half mirror; an image capturing unit configured to receive the light modulated by the band-pass filter and capture an image of a subject; and a color image capturing unit configured to receive the other portion of the light divided by the half mirror as three decomposed colors of red, blue, and green and capture a color image of the subject; wherein the half mirror is configured to divide the light from the image capturing lens into the two light paths at an unequal intensity ratio that is equal to or greater than two to one; wherein the band-pass filter has a comb-like spectral shape including a plurality of transmissive wavelength bandwidths and a plurality of non-transmissive wavelength bandwidths within a wavelength range of a visible region; and wherein the image capturing unit configured to receive the light transmitted through the band-pass filter comprises a color image capturing unit configured to decompose and receive light of the plurality of transmissive wavelength bandwidths transmitted through the band-pass filter.