Integral Imaging Pickup Method With Extended Depth-of-Field by Gradient-Amplitude Modulation

Abstract

One of the major drawbacks of the three-dimensional (3D) integral imaging (II) is the limited depth-of-field (DOF). One approach to enhance the DOF is applying the amplitude-modulating method on the microlens arrays. However, the conventional amplitude-modulating methods usually suffer some collateral effects such as lateral resolution reductions or contrast reversals. In this paper, we propose a gradient-amplitude-modulating (GAM) method to enhance the DOF of the II pickup system when recording large-depth 3D scenes. This method is practical and not accompanied by any obvious lateral resolution deteriorations or contrast reversals. Experimental results obtained from the optical pickup process and computational reconstruction process finally demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.