DESIGN OF MICRO PHOTON SIEVE ARRAYS FOR HIGH RESOLUTION LIGHT-FIELD CAPTURE IN PLENOPTIC CAMERAS

The design of micro photon sieve arrays (PSAs) is investigated for light-field capture with high spatial resolution in plenoptic cameras. A commercial very high-resolution full-frame camera with a manual lens is converted into a plenoptic camera for high-resolution depth image acquisition by using the designed PSA as an add-on diffractive optical element in place of an ordinary refractive microlens array or a diffractive micro Fresnel Zone Plate (FZP) array, which is used in integral imaging applications. The noise introduced by the diffractive nature of the optical element is reduced by standard image processing tools. The light-field data is also used for computational refocusing of the 3D scene with wave propagation tools.