Bayerpatroon

Bayerpatroon is a term primarily used in the context of early color photography. It refers to a specific type of color filter array, also known as a color filter mosaic or color filter pattern, developed by the German chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer AG in the late 1960s and patented by its inventor, Bryce Bayer, in 1975. This pattern was revolutionary for its simplicity and effectiveness in enabling single-chip image sensors to capture color information.

The Bayer pattern consists of a grid of photosensitive pixels, where each pixel is covered by a red, green, or blue filter. The arrangement is not random; it follows a specific repeating pattern, typically a 2x2 grid with two green filters, one red filter, and one blue filter. This arrangement is a diamond shape, with green filters positioned diagonally from each other. The reason for the prevalence of green filters is that the human eye is most sensitive to green light.

When light strikes the sensor, each pixel records the intensity of the light filtered by its assigned color. To create a full-color image, a process called demosaicing or debayering is employed. This algorithm interpolates the missing color information for each pixel based on the color values of its neighboring pixels. Despite its widespread use, the Bayer pattern is a compromise. It captures only one color per pixel directly, and the demosaicing process introduces some loss of detail and potential for artifacts. Nevertheless, its efficiency and cost-effectiveness have made it the dominant color filter pattern in digital cameras, smartphone cameras, and other image sensors for decades.