Simulation of light fields captured by a plenoptic camera using an equivalent camera array

Abstract

Post-processing of light fields enables us to extract more information from a scene compared to traditional camera. Plenoptic cameras and camera arrays are two common methods for light-field capture. In fact, it has been long recognized that the two devices are in some ways equivalent. Practically though, light field capture via camera arrays results in poor angular sampling. Similarly, the plenoptic camera often suffers from relatively poor spatial sampling. In simulation, we can easily explore both constraints by simulating two-dimensional view point images and combining them into a four dimensional light field. In this work, we present a formalism for converting between equivalent plenoptic configurations and camera arrays. We use this approach to simulate a simple scene and explore the trade-offs in angular and spatial sampling in light-field capture.