Three-dimensional integral imaging with improved visualization using subpixel optical ray sensing

In this Letter, we propose an improved three-dimensional (3D) image reconstruction method for integral imaging. We use subpixel sensing of the optical rays of the 3D scene projected onto the image sensor. When reconstructing the 3D image, we use a calculated minimum subpixel distance for each sensor pixel instead of the average pixel value of integrated pixels from elemental images. The minimum subpixel distance is defined by measuring the distance between the center of the sensor pixel and the physical position of the imaging lens point spread function onto the sensor, which is projected from each reconstruction point for all elemental images. To show the usefulness of the proposed method, preliminary 3D imaging experiments are presented. Experimental results reveal that the proposed method may improve 3D imaging visualization because of the superior sensing and reconstruction of optical ray direction and intensity information for 3D objects.