SUPER LIGHT-FIELD LENS

• US 20110169994A1
• Filed: 03/04/2010
• Published: 07/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/19/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pixar (The Walt Disney Company)
• Original Assignee: Pixar (The Walt Disney Company)
• Inventors: Selkirk Duff, Thomas Douglas, VandeWettering, Mark, Flowers, Peter, DiFrancesco, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,502,909 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/340
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 13/16 for use in conjunction with image converters or intensifiers , or for use with projectors, e.g. objectives for projection TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/207 using a single 2D image sensor
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/957 Light-field or plenoptic cameras or camera modules

Abstract

Light field imaging systems, and in particular light field lenses that can be mated with a variety of conventional cameras (e.g., digital or photographic/film, image and video/movie cameras) to create light field imaging systems. Light field data collected by these light field imaging systems can then be used to produce 2D images, right eye/left eye 3D images, to refocus foreground images and/or background images together or separately (depth of field adjustments), and to move the camera angle, as well as to render and manipulate images using a computer graphics rendering engine and compositing tools.

Claims

1. A system for plenoptic photography, the system comprising:

a) a lenslet array;

b) a sensor element;

c) an optical relay element positioned between the lenslet array and the sensor element, the relay element being configured to gather light refracted from the lenslet array and to focus the gathered light on to the sensor element.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the relay optical element includes:

a first set of optical elements; and

a second set of optical elements,

wherein the first set of optical elements is configured and arranged to collimate the gathered light and focus the collimated light onto the second set of optical elements, and wherein the second set of optical elements is configured and arranged to focus the light onto the sensor element.

3. The system of claim 1, further including a field lens positioned to focus light onto the lenslet array.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor element includes one of a CCD sensor or a CMOS sensor or photographic film.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor element includes a camera housing that holds a sensor.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the distance between the sensor element and the lenslet array is greater than about 30 mm.

20. The system of claim 3, wherein the field lens includes one of a prime lens or a zoom lens.

6. A relay lens comprising light gathering optical elements configured to collimate and focus light received from a lenslet array onto focusing optics, wherein the focusing optics are configured to focus the light onto an image plane.

7. A plenoptic camera, comprising:

a field lens having a focal plane;

a lenslet array positioned at the focal plane;

a relay element configured to collimate light refracted by the lenslet array and to focus the light onto an image plane; and

a sensor positioned at the image plane.

8. The camera of claim 7, wherein the f# of the field lens is less than or equal to the f# of the lenslet array.

9. The camera of claim 7, wherein the sensor includes one of a CCD sensor or a CMOS sensor or photographic film.

10. The camera of claim 7, wherein the distance between the sensor and the lenslet array is greater than about 30 mm.

11. The camera of claim 7, wherein the distance between the sensor and the lenslet array is between about 30 mm and about 300 mm.

19. The camera of claim 7, wherein the field lens includes one of a prime lens or a zoom lens.

13. A plenoptic lens comprising:

a field lens having a focal plane;

a lenslet array for receiving light from the field lens and positioned proximal the focal plane;

focusing optics; and

light gathering optical elements configured to collimate and focus light received from the lenslet array onto the focusing optics, wherein the focusing optics are configured to focus the light onto an image plane.

14. The lens of claim 13, further including a housing structure that holds the field lens, the lenslet array, focusing optics and light gathering optics together.

15. The lens of claim 14, wherein the housing structure is adapted to mate with a lens mount on a camera such that the image plane coincides substantially with a sensor of the camera.

16. The lens of claim 15, wherein the camera is one of a digital still photo camera, a digital motion picture camera, a photographic motion picture camera or a photographic film camera.

17. The lens of claim 14, wherein the housing structure includes a lens barrel.

18. The lens of claim 13, wherein the field lens includes one of a prime lens or a zoom lens.

21. A method of calibrating a superplenoptic lens having a lenslet array, the method comprising:

obtaining a field image including a plurality of images each lenslet image corresponding to a lenslet in the lenslet array;

filtering the field image;

identifying a plurality of extrema in the filtered image; and

using the extrema to determine locations and spacings of the lenslet images.