Programmable multifunction electronic camera

An electronic camera, comprising:

• an enclosure;
• a lens assembly mounted to the enclosure, the lens assembly including a lens for generating images and a lens mounting assembly for mounting the lens on the enclosure;
• camera interface connectors mounted to the enclosure for connecting the camera to an external computer system or flash memory, the camera interface connectors including one or more universal serial bus connectors;
• an image sensor board mounted inside the enclosure for receiving images from the lens assembly and generating pixel signal digital data representative of the received images and pixel location data representative of a location for each pixel included in the image sensor board, the image sensor board including a pixel digital image sensor having a pixel array for generating analog pixel signals representative of the received images, analog to digital converters for converting the analog pixel signals into the pixel signal digital data, a sensor input/output interface for outputting the pixel signal digital data and the pixel location data, and for receiving image sensor control signals that cause the pixel digital image sensor to generate the pixel signal digital data and the pixel location data, and sensor controls for controlling the conversion of the analog pixel signals into the pixel signal digital data based on the image sensor control signals and the outputting of the pixel signal digital data and the pixel location data;
• an image processing board connected to the image sensor board and mounted inside the enclosure for converting the pixel signal digital data into detector element signal digital data representative of analog detector element image sensor signals that would be generated by any one of a variety of different detector element image sensors receiving the images received by the image sensor board, the image processing board including an image processor circuit for converting the pixel signal digital data into the detector element signal digital data by retrieving the pixel signal digital data and pixel location data from the pixel image sensor, retrieving detector element image sensor masks containing information representative of detector element image sensors from a mask memory included on the image processing board, mapping each pixel in the pixel image sensor to one of the detector elements included in the image sensor masks using the pixel location data and a mapping algorithm, and combining the pixel signal digital data for all of the pixels mapped to each one of the detector elements to generate the detector element signal digital data;
• and
• a camera interface board connected to the image processing board and the camera interface connectors, and mounted inside the enclosure, for outputting the detector element signal digital data to the external computer system and for receiving mapping algorithms and detector element image sensor masks from the external computer system, the camera interface board including an integrated universal serial bus peripheral controller for outputting and receiving the detector element signal digital data, the mapping algorithms, and the detector element image sensor masks.