Patent ID: 7483070

Claim:
An apparatus for inputting an image, comprising: a principal optical system on which a light beam corresponding to a single image is incident; light beam separating means for separating the light beam which passed through said principal optical system into a plurality of light beams corresponding to divided image groups each having divided images not adjacent to one another; optical receiving and divided image group forming means for receiving said plurality of light beams, respectively, and forming the divided image groups, each of said divided image groups corresponding to one of the received light beams; and image generating means for generating said single image by combining said divided image groups with one another; wherein said single image is composed of divided images, the number of said divided images is not less than that of said plurality of light beams, each of said divided image groups is obtained by applying a possibility of a graph color separation problem in a graph theory, said optical receiving and divided image forming means has imaging devices corresponding to said divided images, respectively, and said light beam separating means has an optical fiber array.