Patent ID: 7612803

Claim:
A method of capturing and processing optical radiation data, comprising: within a hand-held camera, generating digital data of at least one frame of a pattern of optical radiation from a sensor having an array of photosensitive pixels upon which the pattern of optical radiation is incident, wherein generating the digital data comprises: independently compressing each of a plurality of color arrays of pixel data within a single image frame based at least in part on at least one scale factor and one or more quantization tables, wherein each color array comprises a subset of pixel data of one primary color detected by a portion of the sensor from the pattern of optical radiation, and wherein each scale factor is applied to a plurality of quantization table values within at least one quantization table to adjust each quantization table value within the single image frame such that the subset of pixel data of each color array is compressed a single time; and buffering, in a volatile memory within the camera, each of a plurality of corresponding compressed color arrays, wherein the buffering includes interleaving the plurality of compressed color arrays into the volatile memory in an order corresponding to a line-by-line mosaic arrangement of the sensor; storing, in a non-volatile memory within the camera, the generated data and support data necessary to perform at least a first processing of the generated data to improve the quality of a resulting optical radiation pattern display frame formed therefrom, subsequently transferring the generated data and support data from the camera's non-volatile memory to a workstation, and performing the first processing of the generated data within the workstation with use of the support data to produce processed data from which the resulting optical radiation pattern display frame has the improved quality.