Universal Demosaicking for Interpolation-Friendly RGBW Color Filter Arrays

IEEE Trans Image Process. 2023:32:3592-3605. doi: 10.1109/TIP.2023.3286253. Epub 2023 Jun 29.

Abstract

Interpolation-friendly RGBW color filter arrays (CFAs) and the popular sequential demosaicking contain the idea of computational photography, where the CFA and the demosaicking method are co-designed. Due to the advantages, interpolation-friendly RGBW CFAs have been extensively used in commercial color cameras. However, most associated demosaicking methods rely on strict assumptions or are limited to a few specific CFAs with a given camera. In this paper, we propose a universal demosaicking method for interpolation-friendly RGBW CFAs, which enables the comparison of different CFAs. Our new method belongs to sequential demosaicking, i.e., W channel is interpolated first and then RGB channels are reconstructed with guidance from the interpolated W channel. Specifically, it first interpolates the W channel using only available W pixels followed by an aliasing reduction technique to remove aliasing artifacts. Then it employs an image decomposition model to built relations between W channel and each of RGB channels with known RGB values, which can be easily generalized to the full-size demosaicked image. We apply the linearized alternating direction method (LADM) to solve it with convergence guarantee. Our demosaicking method can be applied to all interpolation-friendly RGBW CFAs with varying color cameras and lighting conditions. Extensive experiments confirm the universal property and advantage of our proposed method with both simulated and real raw images.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Color
  • Colorimetry / methods
  • Image Enhancement* / methods
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods