Retrieval of Three-Dimensional Image from Compound-Eye Imaging with Defocus Using Ray Tracing

A three-dimensional image retrieval method from a compound-eye image degraded by low-resolution sampling and defocusing is proposed. The three-dimensional profile of a target object is acquired from parallax images captured by a compound-eye imaging system. The compound-eye imaging is modeled by ray tracing to relate the pixels on the three-dimensional surface of the object to the pixels of an image sensor. A high-resolution three-dimensional image can be reconstructed by minimizing the difference between the captured image and the image calculated by ray tracing of the modeled composed-eye imaging. The validity of the proposed method is verified by computer simulations.