Research On Visual Quality Enhancement Of Reconstructed 3D Images In Integral Imaging

Integral imaging that records multi-perspective images by use of a simple system structure is considered a promising technique for three-dimensional (3D) imaging, because of its ability to provide a continuous viewing and full color 3D images without any wearable devices. However, conventional integral imaging based on lenslet array cannot be widely used at present, because it provides insufficient resolution in the reconstructed 3D images. In this paper, we present two kind of resolution-enhanced integral imaging reconstruction methods:One of them is used for improving 3D reconstruction of far and big size objects, and another system is used for improving the resolution of the reconstructed 3D images near the observer.For the far 3D objects, the sampling rate of light information is reduced greatly because of the light diffraction and attenuation. To solve the above problems, this paper proposed a method of using the Plano concave lens which can form a size and depth reduced virtual images to improve the reconstructed 3D images quality in the synthetic aperture integral imaging. The proposed method of forming virtual images for far 3D objects can not only increasing the sampling rate of light information but also reduce the reconstructed distance and operation time. Simulations and experiments are implemented to demonstrate the Plano concave lens in the synthetic aperture integral imaging can improve the sampling rate of light information and reduce the reconstructed depth. The experimental results verify that the proposed method can enhance the 3D image quality in the reconstruction of far building.For the 3D objects near the observer, the limited number of lenslets and the small size of each lens in the lenslet array can limit the sampling rate of light information. In addition, the aperture effect of the lenslet array can also introduce light diffraction and scattering. Both of the above problems can largely reduce the resolution of the captured elemental images. In order to improve the sampling rate of light information under the limited number of lenslets, we present a resolution-enhanced integral imaging system by using the boundary folding mirrors to add the number of lenslets. In this proposed method, the reconstructed 3D images quality will be improved by recording more light information because of the specular reflection effect. Besides, the boundary folding mirrors can also provide a wider viewing-angle than conventional integral imaging. To show the feasibility of the proposed method, some experiments such as capturing optical images and reconstructing 3D images for the 3D objects near the observer are performed. From the experimental results, we can verify that the proposed method can capture more light information and improve the resolution of reconstructed 3D images effectively for the 3D objects near the observer under the limited number of lenslet.