1. A polarimetric color imaging system, comprising: a single common aperture, wherein said system operates exclusively on received light collected through said single common aperture, said received light comprising color band light and near infrared (IR) band light; a color filter array comprising a plurality of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) filter elements in a path of said received light; a linear polarizer array comprising a plurality of polarization filter elements that provide a plurality of different polarization orientations optically aligned with respective ones of said R, G and B filter elements; a single common pixel array comprising a plurality of photodetector pixels for transducing said color band light and said near IR band light after processing by said color filter array and said linear polarizer array into electrical signals, respective ones of said plurality photodetector pixels optically aligned with said plurality of R, G and B filter elements and said plurality of polarization filter elements; a band select switching device in a path of said received light for switching between transmitting exclusively said near IR band light and said color band or color band comprising light, and a signal processor coupled to receive and process said electrical signals exclusively from said single common pixel array, said signal processor generating color image data from said color band or said color band comprising light during first time intervals and polarimetric image data exclusively from said near IR band light during second time intervals that do not overlap with said first time intervals and color image data from said color band or said color band comprising light.