Engineering:Pixel shifting

Pixel shifting refers to various technical methods, either to diminish damage to displays by preventing "burn in" of static images or to enhance resolution of digital imaging devices and projectors.

Technical implementations that encompass Pixel shifting

• Pixel shifting to avoid burn-in explained in detail for both analogue and digital screens
• Pixel shifting to enhance character display resolution on terminals, improves readability of onscreen character sets
• Pixel shifting to increase projected resolution, involves movements of the pixel array which determines the light flow of a digital projector
• Pixel shifting with multiple sensors to increase capture resolution, involves individual movements of multiple digital image sensors
• Pixel shifting to increase image resolution, involves movements of a single digital camera sensor

Note: In technical articles the generic term pixel shifting is often used synonymously with the more specific term pixel shift.

Instances of Pixel shift technology

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Pixel shifting is a term used both for a method to prevent "burn-in" of static images on displays and as a method to augment resolution in digital imaging devices and projectors.

Pixel shift to increase capture resolution

Simple image (left) and pixel shifted image (right) with less noise and higher resolution (click to enlarge)

Pixel shifting is also a technique that increases the true resolution of devices such as camcorder sensors and digital microscopes by moving one or more of the separate red, green or blue sensors by fractions of a pixel in the x- and y-directions. For example, early high-definition camcorders used a 3CCD sensor block of 960 × 540 pixels each. Shifting the red and blue sensors half a pixel in both the vertical and horizontal direction permits the recovery of a 1920 × 1080 luminance signal. This technique is seeing a renaissance with native 1080p video projectors that pixel shift horizontally to produce an effectively 4K image on the screen. The electronics corporation JVC refers to it as "e-shift".

Pixel shift to enhance character display resolution on terminals

Computer terminals such as the HP 2645A used a half-shift algorithm to move pixel positions by half a screen pixel in order to support the generation of multiple complex character sets.