Neighbor Pixel Mixture

Pixel mixture is a technique to reduce the read-out time of an image by mixing multiple pixel values on an imager. Ordinary pixel mixtures mix the values of equicolor pixels. However, the equicolor pixels are not contiguous on the Bayer pattern. Mixing non-contiguous pixels degrades the resolution of the mixed image. This paper proposes a novel pixel mixture method which we call a "neighbor pixel mixture". The resolution of the neighbor pixel mixture image is superior to that of existing pixel mixtures. The proposed method mixes the values of the neighbor pixels with different colors. In the proposed method, a weighted average is used for the mixing operation, whereas ordinary pixel mixtures apply a simple average. We also discuss a guideline to design weights for averaging