Co-site sampling is the name of a photographic technique in which images are combined to create higher precision. A full-color photo is built from four, 16, or 36 individual shots taken with less than one pixel of difference between each image. This technique uses microscanning and allows the camera to accurately gather more color and detail information than would be possible using even expensive software techniques. Color co-site sampling is a viable alternative to the typical Bayer filter array of pixels which returns a lower quality image with interpolated pixel colors.
Several images are captured and combined to a sharp resulting image. After the acquisition of each image a piezo mechanism moves the sensor by precisely the distance of one pixel and delivers the complete color information for each detail and with the same sharpness in all three color channels.
Micro scanning is essential for the method. 4 (2×2), 16 (4×4), or 36 (6×6) shots can be used for improved color reproduction.