CS194-26: Image Manipulation and Computational Photography

Programming Project #5: Lightfield Camera

Dennis Lee (cs194-26-acy)

Objective

A lightfield camera can be used to produce many different effects from a single (array of) images. It can refocus an image on the fly for practical or artistic purposes or simulate images with different cameras.

Depth Refocusing

A lightfield camera can be used to capture the same image from multiple angles. By realigning the images, we can select which part to bring into focus. Finding the right alignment is a matter of trying different rotations until one of them looks correct.

Chess

Jelly Beans

Knights

Aperture Adjustment

Another effect we can simulate is changing the aperture of the camera. With a larger aperture comes a (slightly) larger field of view, but also a blurrier image in the areas further from the focal point.

Small Aperture

Medium Aperture

Large Aperture

TIL

If we have a convenient method to capture a lightfield, for example a special camera designed for the purpose, then it can be used to perform some cool tricks, and is conceptually pretty simple as long as the view we are generating is parallel to the camera's plane.