Researchers at the Harvard School
of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a way for
photographers and microscopists to create a 3D image through a single lens,
without moving the camera. The effect is the equivalent of seeing a stereo
image with one eye closed. Researchers managed to infer the angle of the light
at each pixel, rather than directly measuring it. The team's solution is to
take two images from the same camera position but focused at different depths.
The slight differences between these two images provide enough information for
a computer to mathematically create a brand-new image as if the camera had been
moved to one side.
By stitching these two images
together into an animation, researchers provide a way for amateur photographers
and microscopists alike to create the impression of a stereo image without the
need for expensive hardware. They are calling their computational method ‘light-field
moment imaging’—not to be confused with ‘light field cameras’, which achieve
similar effects using high-end hardware rather than computational processing. Importantly,
the technique offers a new and very accessible way to create 3D images of
translucent materials, such as biological tissues. The new technology also
suggests an alternative way to create 3D movies for the big screen.
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