Disparity estimation using sparsely-distributed phase detection pixels

A non-transitory program storage device comprising instructions stored thereon to cause one or more processors to:

• obtain first light information from a set of light-sensitive pixels for a scene, the set of light-sensitive pixels including a plurality of phase detection (PD) pixels and a plurality of non-PD pixels;
• obtain location information for the plurality of PD pixels;
• generate a first PD pixel image from the first light information based on location information obtained from the plurality of PD pixels, wherein the first PD pixel image has a first resolution;
• generate a higher resolution image from the first light information obtained from the plurality of non-PD pixels, wherein the higher resolution image has a second resolution that is greater than the first resolution of the first PD pixel image;
• match a first pixel of the first PD pixel image to the higher resolution image, wherein the match is based on a set of correlations between the first pixel and non-PD pixels within a predetermined distance of the first pixel;
• and
• determine a disparity map for an image associated with the first light information, based on the match.

An electronic device, comprising:

• one or more image capture devices;
• a display;
• a user interface;
• and
• one or more processors operatively coupled to a memory, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute instructions stored in the memory causing the one or more processors to:
• obtain first light information from a set of light-sensitive pixels for a scene, the set of light-sensitive pixels including a plurality of phase detection (PD) pixels and a plurality of non-PD pixels;
• obtain location information associated with each of the plurality of PD pixels;
• generate a first PD pixel image from the first light information based on location information obtained from the plurality of PD pixels, wherein the first PD pixel image has a first resolution;
• obtain a higher resolution image having a second resolution greater than the first resolution of the first PD pixel image;
• match a first pixel of the first PD pixel image to the higher resolution image, wherein the match is based on a set of correlations between the first pixel and non-PD pixels within a predetermined distance of the first pixel;
• and
• determine a disparity map for an image associated with the first light information, based on the match.