Characterizing the response of charge-couple device digital color cameras

Abstract

The advance and rapid development of electronic imaging technology has lead the way to production of imaging sensors capable of acquiring good quality digital images with a high resolution. At the same time the cost and size of imaging devices have reduced. This has incited an increasing research interest for techniques that use images obtained by multiple camera arrays. The use of multi-camera arrays is attractive because it allows capturing multi-view images of dynamic scenes, enabling the creation of novel computer vision and computer graphics applications, as well as next generation video and television systems. There are additional challenges when using a multi-camera array, however. Due to inconsistencies in the fabrication process of imaging sensors and filters, multi-camera arrays exhibit inter-camera color response variations. In this work we characterize and compare the response of two digital color cameras, which have a light sensor based on the charge-coupled device (CCD) array architecture. The results of the response characterization process can be used to model the cameras’ responses, which is an important step when constructing a multi-camera array system.