“Multi-Focal Compound Eye: Liquid Lens Array for Computational Photography” by Ueda, Lee, Koike, Takahashi and Naemura

We developed a novel imaging system that captures images through an array of variable-focus lenses. Since the focal length of each lens can be controlled independently, the system is called a ”Multi-focal compound eye”.

Several compound-eye cameras were developed for various applications such as image-based rendering and digital refocusing [Yamamoto et al. 2004; Ng et al. 2005; Georgiev et al. 2006]. However, those systems were implemented by using fixed-focus lenses. Furthermore, by using dynamic optical devices, our system introduces the concept of Programmable Imaging [Nayar 2006] to compoundeye cameras.

References

BERGE, B., AND PESEUX, J. 2000. Variable Focal Lens Controlled by an External Voltage: an Application of Electrowetting. Eur. Phys. J. E 3, 2, 159–163.

GEORGIEV, T., ZHENG, K. C., CURLESS, B., SALESIN, D., NAYAR, S., AND INTWALA, C. 2006. Spatio-Angular Resolution Tradeoff in Integral Photography. In Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2006.

NAYAR, S. K. 2006. Computational Cameras: Redefining the Image. IEEE Computer Magazine, Special Issue on Computational Photography (Aug), 30–38.

NG, R., LEVOY, M., BR´E DIF, M., DUVAL, G., HOROWITZ, M., AND HANRAHAN, P. 2005. Light Field Photography with a Hand-held Plenoptic Camera. Tech. Rep. CTSR 2005-02, Stanford Tech Report.

UEDA, K., KOIKE, T., TAKAHASHI, K., AND NAEMURA, T. 2008. Adaptive IP Imaging with Variable-Focus Lens Array. In Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XIX, 6803–45.

YAMAMOTO, T., KOJIMA, M., AND NAEMURA, T. 2004. LIFLET: Light Field Live with Thousands of Lenslets. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2004 Emerging technologies, 16.