Microscopic and macroscopic 3D imaging and display by integral imaging

Abstract

Integral imaging is a rising 3D imaging technique that can be considered the incoherent version of holography. In integral imaging the multiperspective information of 3D scenes is stored in a 2D picture. Such picture, composed by a set of elemental images, is obtained through a 2D array of microlenses. The elemental-images set can be used for many purposes. One is the display of 3D color scenes to audiences or much more than one person. Other is the 3D display, with full parallax, in personal monitors, like the screen of a smartphone, a tablet, or the monitor used by a surgeon in an endoscopic operation. Other important types of applications are connected with the topographic reconstruction, slice by slice, of the 3D scene. This is especially important in the case of microscopy applications. In this talk, we review the important capacities of integral imaging and the results obtained by our group, the 3D Imaging & Display Lab, in the field of integral imaging.