Lightfield recording and reconstruction by integral imaging

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 is nothing but a sampling version of the lightfield emitted by the 3D scene. The recorded lightfield 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.