The arrangement of color filters on a digital image sensor, using a specific repeating pattern of red, green, and blue elements, is a foundational aspect of digital imaging. Typically, this arrangement incorporates twice as many green elements as red or blue, mimicking the human eye’s greater sensitivity to green light. A raw image file from such a sensor captures light intensity for each color filter at each pixel location, creating a mosaic of color information.
This color filter array design is crucial for creating full-color images from the raw sensor data. Demosaicing algorithms interpolate the missing color information at each pixel location based on the surrounding filter values. This process enables the reconstruction of a full-color image, facilitating diverse applications in photography, videography, scientific imaging, and numerous other fields. The historical development of this technology has significantly influenced the evolution of digital cameras and image processing techniques.