Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/12

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Subject: [Leica] Re: pixel count, was Paperless???
From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 21:51:35 -0700

Hi Shawn,

Almost all correct. But it takes four (4) physical pixels to represent one
(1) image pixel. It's 4:1, not 3:1. So it's worse than many folks think.

The reason is that sensors use a Bayer pattern, which takes into account
the most prevalent color mix that mother nature gave us. The pixel sequence
is:

RGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRG
GBGBGBGBGBGBGBGBGBGBGBGB
RGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRG
GBGBGBGBGBGBGBGBGBGBGBGB

There are two green pixels for every one red and one blue pixel. They are
in a quadrant contained in two pixel rows.

RG  RG  RG
GB  GB  GB

So real resolution is one quarter of stated resolution.

Jim

At 12:34 AM 10/13/99 -0400, Shawn London wrote:
>
>One additional thing to consider here is that while a digital camera can
>consider itself a "2 megapixel" camera as many do these days, it is
>important to keep in mind that this is the device's CCD pixel density, not
>the actual number of pixels in the final image file that it generates.  This
>is due to the fact that three imaging sensing pixels in a CCD are needed to
>determine the color of a single pixel in the final image. The bottom line is
>that there is only 1/3 the effective resolution in a CCD that its stated
>resolution would suggest.  The rest of the data is interpolated to give you
>an image file of the stated resolution (i.e. 1800x1600).
>