Apparatus and method for capturing still images and video using coded lens imaging techniques

• US 8,013,285 B2
• Filed: 01/21/2010
• Issued: 09/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rearden, LLC
• Original Assignee: Rearden, LLC
• Inventors: van der Laan, Roger, Greene, Pamela, Speck, John, Busboom, Axel, Perlman, Stephen G., Cotter, Tim S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Luu; Thanh X
• Application Number:
  US12/691,500
• Publication Number:
  US 20100220212A1
• Time in Patent Office: 593 Days
• Field of Search: 250/216, 250/208.1, 250/363.06
• US Class Current: 250/208.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/957 Light-field or plenoptic cameras or camera modules
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/60 Noise processing, e.g. detecting, correcting, reducing or removing noise
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/61 the noise originating only from the lens unit, e.g. flare, shading, vignetting or "cos4"

Abstract

An apparatus for capturing images. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises: a coded lens array including a plurality of lenses arranged in a coded pattern and with opaque material blocking array elements that do not contain lenses; and a light-sensitive semiconductor sensor coupled to the coded lens array and positioned at a specified distance behind the coded lens array, the light-sensitive sensor configured to sense light transmitted through the lenses in the coded lens array.

Claims

1. An apparatus for coding images comprising:

a light-sensitive sensor configured to detect visible light representing a scene;

a coded lens array including a plurality of lenses arranged in a first dimension and a second dimension and coupled together to form a two dimensional coded pattern cyclically repeated at least once in both dimensions, wherein maximum angles are established at which visible light of the scene can pass through the coded lens array and reach the light-sensitive sensor, resulting in a different level of intensity of the visible light at different regions of the light-sensitive sensor;

wherein the coded pattern is arranged to cause an overlapping of images projected from lenses onto the light-sensitive sensor;

an analog to digital converter electrically coupled to the light sensitive sensor, the A/D converter to convert an analog signal representing visible light detected by the light-sensitive sensor to a digital signal; and

an image reconstruction processor to process the digital signal and generate a reconstructed image of the scene, the reconstruction processor including program code and/or circuitry to compensate for the different levels of attenuation by adjusting intensity at different regions of the reconstructed image.

2. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the light-sensitive sensor is a light-sensitive semiconductor sensor coupled to the coded lens array and positioned at a specified distance behind the coded lens array, the light-sensitive sensor configured to sense light transmitted through the lenses in the coded lens array.

3. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the coded pattern is a Uniformly Redundant Array (URA) pattern.

4. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the coded pattern is a Modified Uniformly Redundant Array (MURA) pattern.

5. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the coded pattern is a random pattern.

6. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein there is opaque material blocking array elements which do not contain lenses.

7. The apparatus as in claim 2 further comprising:

an image sensor readout subsystem communicatively coupled to receive image data from the light-sensitive semiconductor sensor and to dynamically adjust zero offset and/or gain of pixel values of the image data.