Fast Computational Camera Based On Two Arrays of Lenses
First Claim
1. A camera, comprising:
- a photosensor configured to capture images projected onto the photosensor;
an objective lens array comprising N discrete objective lenses, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to two, wherein each objective lens is configured to refract light from a subject located in front of an aperture of the camera; and
a lenslet array located between the objective lens array and the photosensor, wherein the lenslet array comprises M lenslets, where M is an integer greater than or equal to two, wherein each lenslet in the lenslet array is configured to;
refract light from each of the N objective lenses in the objective lens array; and
separate the light refracted from the N objective lenses and project the separated light onto N separate subregions of a region of the photosensor corresponding to the lenslet to thus project N separate images of the subject onto the region of the photosensor.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Method and apparatus for a fast (low F/number) computational camera that incorporates two arrays of lenses. The arrays include a lenslet array in front of a photosensor and an objective lens array of two or more lenses. Each lens in the objective lens array captures light from a subject. Each lenslet in the lenslet array captures light from each objective lens and separates the captured light to project microimages corresponding to the objective lenses on a region of the photosensor under the lenslet. Thus, a plurality of microimages are projected onto and captured by the photosensor. The captured microimages may be processed in accordance with the geometry of the objective lenses to align the microimages to generate a final image. One or more other algorithms may be applied to the image data in accordance with radiance information captured by the camera, such as automatic refocusing of an out-of-focus image.
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Citations
25 Claims
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1. A camera, comprising:
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a photosensor configured to capture images projected onto the photosensor; an objective lens array comprising N discrete objective lenses, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to two, wherein each objective lens is configured to refract light from a subject located in front of an aperture of the camera; and a lenslet array located between the objective lens array and the photosensor, wherein the lenslet array comprises M lenslets, where M is an integer greater than or equal to two, wherein each lenslet in the lenslet array is configured to; refract light from each of the N objective lenses in the objective lens array; and separate the light refracted from the N objective lenses and project the separated light onto N separate subregions of a region of the photosensor corresponding to the lenslet to thus project N separate images of the subject onto the region of the photosensor. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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11. The camera as recited in claim 11, wherein the regular geometric shape is a polygon, and wherein the number of objective lenses is less than or equal to 10,000.
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16. A method for capturing a digital image of a subject, comprising:
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refracting light from the subject at an objective lens array of a camera, wherein the objective lens array comprises a plurality of objective lenses, wherein each objective lens is configured to refract light from the subject located in front of an aperture of the camera; refracting light from each of the plurality of objective lenses in the objective lens array at each of a plurality of lenslets of a lenslet array located between the objective lens array and a photosensor configured to capture images projected onto the photosensor; separating, at each lenslet in the lenslet array, the light refracted from the plurality of objective lenses and projecting the separated light onto a plurality of separate subregions of a region of the photosensor corresponding to the lenslet to thus project a plurality of separate images of the subject onto the region of the photosensor; and capturing, at the photosensor, the plurality of separate images projected onto the photosensor by the plurality of lenslets. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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Specification