Self-calibrating, digital, large format camera with single or mulitiple detector arrays and single or multiple optical systems

Camera apparatus for producing a large area image of a large area object, comprisng;

• a two-dimensional array of photosensitive elements;
• a plurality of lens systems, each of which focuses different, but overlapping small area portions of the large area object onto the two-dimensional array of photosensitive elements;
• a shutter on each of the lens system;
• a shutter control system that actuates the respective shutters sequentially to expose the array of photosensitive elements sequentially to the respective different, but overlapping small area portions of the large area object;
• and
• an electronic signal processing circuit that is capable for acquiring pixel data of the small area portions of the large area object from the photosensitive elements for each of the exposures and of storing the pixel data according to their relative positions in a coordinate system for each sequential exposure.

Camera apparatus for producing a large area image of a large area object, comprising:

• a plurality of small area arrays of photosensitive elements positioned in a focal plane of a single lens system;
• a shutter on the single lens system;
• translation means for imparting relative movement between the lens system and light from the large area object;
• a shutter control system that actuates the shutter to expose the small area arrays of photosensitive elements to the large area object sequentially before and after imparting relative movement between the lens system and light from the large area object to acquire pixel data of different, overlapping portions of the large area object.

Camera apparatus for producing a large area image of a large area object, comprising:

• a plurality of camera subsets, wherein each camera subset comprises a plurality of small format arrays of photosensitive elements and a lens system for forcusing different, non-overlapping, small area portions of the large area object onto the respective small format arrays of photosensistive elements in such camera subset, but wherein small area portions of the large area object focused on small format arrays of respective different camera subsets cover areas between, and overlap, the small area portions of the large area objects focused on the small format arrays of other camera subsets;
• a shutter on each of the camera subsets;
• a shutter control system that synchronizes actuation of the shutters of the camera subsets;
• and
• an electronic signal processing circuit that is capable of acquiring pixel data of the small area portions of the large area object from the photosensitive elements of each of the small format arrays and of storing the pixel data according to their relative positions in a coordinate system for each small format array.