3D Image Input System for High Resolution Integral Photography

Abstract

Integral photography (IP), in which viewers can see 3D images from almost any viewing points without wearing special glasses, is one of the ideal 3D display technologies. Generally an IP image, which is composed of many element images, is captured through a lens array. However, this method is not suited to produce high resolution 3D images, because only small number of picture elements is assigned to each element image. We propose a 3D image input system for high resolution IP. In this system a CCD camera is attached to an XY plotter instead of a pen, and 32 × 32=1024 images are successively captured by the camera as it moves vertically and horizontally. The captured images are processed by our program to compose an IP image. We examined the IP image by using it in our 3D display system, which consists of two transparent films, a transparent board and illumination. The IP image is printed in advance on one of the transparent films by high resolution ink jet printer, and pinholes are printed on the other transparent film. By experiments, it has been confirmed that composite IP images generated by our system reproduce proper 3D images.