A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a major technology used in digital imaging.
In digital imaging, a pixel, pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smallest element that can be manipulated through software.
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue.
A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices like smartphones with the same or more capabilities and features of dedicated cameras. High-end, high-definition dedicated cameras are still commonly used by professionals and those who desire to take higher-quality photographs.
LBCAST is a type of photo sensor which the manufacturer claims is simpler and thus smaller and faster than CMOS sensors. It was developed over ten years by Nikon, in parallel with other manufacturer's development of CMOS, and resulted in shipping product in 2003.
Color grading is a post-production process common to filmmaking and video editing of altering the appearance of an image for presentation in different environments on different devices. Various attributes of an image such as contrast, color, saturation, detail, black level, and white balance may be enhanced whether for motion pictures, videos, or still images. Color grading and color correction are often used synonymously as terms for this process and can include the generation of artistic color effects through creative blending and compositing of different layer masks of the source image. Color grading is generally now performed in a digital process either in a controlled environment such as a color suite, and is usually done in a dim or dark environment.
Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of showing shades of gray.
A professional video camera is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images. Originally developed for use in television studios or with outside broadcast trucks, they are now also used for music videos, direct-to-video movies, corporate and educational videos, wedding videos, among other uses. Since the 2000s, most professional video cameras are digital.
The Foveon X3 sensor is a digital camera image sensor designed by Foveon, Inc., and manufactured by Dongbu Electronics. It uses an array of photosites that consist of three vertically stacked photodiodes. Each of the three stacked photodiodes has a different spectral sensitivity, allowing it to respond differently to different wavelengths. The signals from the three photodiodes are then processed as additive color data that are transformed to a standard RGB color space. In the late 1970s, a similar color sensor having three stacked photo detectors at each pixel location, with different spectral responses due to the differential absorption of light by the semiconductor, had been developed and patented Kodak.
A Bayer filter mosaic is a color filter array (CFA) for arranging RGB color filters on a square grid of photosensors. Its particular arrangement of color filters is used in most single-chip digital image sensors used in digital cameras, and camcorders to create a color image. The filter pattern is half green, one quarter red and one quarter blue, hence is also called BGGR, RGBG, GRBG, or RGGB.
A dichroic prism is a prism that splits light into two beams of differing wavelengths (colour). A trichroic prism assembly combines two dichroic prisms to split an image into 3 colours, typically as red, green and blue of the RGB colour model. They are usually constructed of one or more glass prisms with dichroic optical coatings that selectively reflect or transmit light depending on the light's wavelength. That is, certain surfaces within the prism act as dichroic filters. These are used as beam splitters in many optical instruments.
A digital camera back is a device that attaches to the back of a camera in place of the traditional negative film holder and contains an electronic image sensor. This allows cameras that were designed to use film take digital photographs. These camera backs are generally expensive by consumer standards and are primarily built to be attached on medium- and large-format cameras used by professional photographers.
Demosaicing, also known as color reconstruction, is a digital image processing algorithm used to reconstruct a full color image from the incomplete color samples output from an image sensor overlaid with a color filter array (CFA) such as a Bayer filter. It is also known as CFA interpolation or debayering.
An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to form an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves into signals, small bursts of current that convey the information. The waves can be light or other electromagnetic radiation. Image sensors are used in electronic imaging devices of both analog and digital types, which include digital cameras, camera modules, camera phones, optical mouse devices, medical imaging equipment, night vision equipment such as thermal imaging devices, radar, sonar, and others. As technology changes, electronic and digital imaging tends to replace chemical and analog imaging.
In digital photography, the CYGM filter is an alternative color filter array to the Bayer filter (GRGB). It similarly uses a mosaic of pixel filters, of cyan, yellow, green and magenta, and so also requires demosaicing to produce a full-color image.
In digital imaging, a color filter array (CFA), or color filter mosaic (CFM), is a mosaic of tiny color filters placed over the pixel sensors of an image sensor to capture color information.
A laser beam profiler captures, displays, and records the spatial intensity profile of a laser beam at a particular plane transverse to the beam propagation path. Since there are many types of lasers—ultraviolet, visible, infrared, continuous wave, pulsed, high-power, low-power—there is an assortment of instrumentation for measuring laser beam profiles. No single laser beam profiler can handle every power level, pulse duration, repetition rate, wavelength, and beam size.
This glossary defines terms that are used in the document "Defining Video Quality Requirements: A Guide for Public Safety", developed by the Video Quality in Public Safety (VQIPS) Working Group. It contains terminology and explanations of concepts relevant to the video industry. The purpose of the glossary is to inform the reader of commonly used vocabulary terms in the video domain. This glossary was compiled from various industry sources.
Monochrome photography is one of the earliest styles of photography and dates back to the 1800s. Monochrome photography is also a popular technique among astrophotographers. This is due to the omission of the Bayer filter, a colour filter array that sits in front of the CMOS or CCD sensor, allowing for a single sensor to produce a colour image.
Peter L. P. Dillon is an American physicist, and the inventor of integral color image sensors and single-chip color video cameras. The curator of the Technology Collection at the George Eastman Museum, Todd Gustavson, has stated that "the color sensor technology developed by Peter Dillon has revolutionized all forms of color photography. These color sensors are now ubiquitous in products such as smart phone cameras, digital cameras and camcorders, digital cinema cameras, medical cameras, automobile cameras, and drones". Dillon joined Kodak Research Labs in 1959 and retired from Kodak in 1991. He lives in Pittsford, New York.
A 3CCD imaging block consisting of a color separation prism of Philips type on which three CCDs are mounted
Three monochrome sensors and color separation prism from Sony DCR-VX1000E camera
