Patent ID: 7256827

Claim:
An image reading device comprising: an imaging device that has photo-diodes and a color filter provided on said imaging device, said color filter having color filter elements of a plurality of colors, said photo-diodes generating an original image data containing pixel data, each of the pixel data corresponding to one of said colors, wherein the color filter elements are arranged in a predetermined distribution; a reading processor that reads said pixel data from said imaging device; a thinning processor that thins out some of said pixel data to generate a thinned image data, each pixel in the thinned pixel data being separated from each other pixel by at least one pixel data, and colors of the thinned pixel data being arranged in said predetermined distribution; and an interpolation processor that performs an interpolation process on said thinned image data to generate an interpolated image data for each of said colors, wherein said colors of said original image data are arranged in such a manner that a (m×m) matrix, formed by said plurality of colors, is repeated, and said thinning processor thins out (m×(n−1)) number of pixel data for every (m×(n−1)+1) number of pixel data in a horizontal direction and a vertical direction of an image corresponding to said original image data, wherein each of “m” and “n” is a positive integer greater than 1; wherein, in the interpolation process, for each pixel a value is calculated based upon adjacent pixel data such that the adjacent pixel data are each multiplied by a weight coefficient, the resulting values are summed, and the sum is divided by a number of the adjacent pixel data.