A New Image Sensor with Programmable Spatially Variant Multiresolution Readout Capability

For a variety of image processing tasks, such as biological vision modeling, stereo range finding, pattern recognition, target tracking, and transmission of compressed images, it is desirable to have image data available at varying resolutions to increase processing speed and efficiency. The user can then obtain a frame of data at the lowest resolution necessary for the task at hand and eliminate unnecessary processing steps. We present a new image sensor with programmable multiresolution readout capability. The proposed image sensor can output data at varying resolutions. For instance, software intensive image pyramid reconstruction can be eliminated. Differing to our previously reported spatially variant sampling which sub-samples without filtering[1], in the multiresolution sensor, pixels are performed moving average and read out then, the new sensor does not suffer from aliasing effects. The multiresolution image sensor has a 64 × 64 pixel array that is programmable to read out the averaged values around the center pixels. The moving average is computed for differing block sizes (3x3, 5x5 or 7x7) that can be controlled locally. We can select the moving average block size for each center pixel.