Quality metric for filter arrangement in a multispectral filter array

Mosaicked color filter arrays and demosaicking methods for multispectral images have been proposed in recent years. Several studies have evaluated the multispectral filter array (MSFA) pattern, but a method to optimize the pattern has not been proposed. We focus on the spatial arrangement of MSFAs to improve the demosaicked image quality. To evaluate the filter arrangement, we propose a new metric that uses both the spatial and spectral correlation of the filters. The arrangement is optimized by using simulated annealing and the proposed metric. An advantage of the proposed metric and its optimization is that they do not need to use image data. Experimental results show that the new metric is proportional to the peak-to-signal noise ratio (PSNR) and that a higher PSNR can be obtained by minimizing the metric using simulated annealing.