Patent ID: 7710466

Claim:
A method of enabling use of a camera module with a light source, the camera module being programmed for use with sources of light that emit spectra of light that follow a characteristic of blackbody sources of light and that fall within a limit region of a chromaticity chart that overlies a portion of a blackbody curve on the chromaticity chart, the camera module having a white-balance routine that is structured to receive data defining a reference white region to derive a reference white color constrained to fall within that reference white region and that is structured to reject data defining an alternate reference white region that falls at least partially outside the limit region, the light source emitting a spectrum of light that does not follow the characteristic of blackbody sources of light and that falls outside the limit region, the method comprising: transmitting a white-balance patch to the camera module; employing the white-balance patch to override at least one original boundary that defines the limit region with at least one replacement boundary that redefines the limit region to create an alternate limit region to cause at least a portion of the spectrum of light of the light source serving as a flash to fall within the alternate limit region as redefined by the at least one replacement boundary; and transmitting to the camera module data representative of a first point that falls outside the limit region defined by the at least one original boundary, that falls within the alternate limit region redefined by the at least one replacement boundary, and that partly defines an alternate reference white region, wherein the alternate reference white region is defined such that no portion of the alternate reference white region overlies any portion of the blackbody curve.