I believe the lytro camera was a plenoptic, or light field, camera. Light field cameras capture information about the intensity together with the direction of light emanating from a scene. Conventional cameras record only light intensity at various wavelengths.
While conventional cameras capture a single high-resolution focal plane and light field cameras sacrifice resolution to "re-focus" via software after the fact, the CMU Split-Lohmann camera provides a middle ground, using an adaptive computational lens to physically focus every part of the image independently. This allows it to capture a "deep-focus" image where objects at multiple distances are sharp simultaneously, maintaining the high resolution of a conventional camera while achieving the depth flexibility of a light field camera without the blur or data loss.
Something I find interesting is that while holograms and the CMU camera both manipulate the "phase" of light, they do so for opposite reasons: a hologram records phase to recreate a 3D volume, whereas the CMU camera modulates phase to fix a 2D image.
I remember Lytro. There was a lot of fanfare behind that company and then they fizzled. They had a lauded CEO/founder and their website demonstrated clearly how the post-focus worked. It felt like they were going to be the next camera revolution. Their rise and demise story would make a good Isaacson-style documentary.
Isn't this the lytro camera?
I believe the lytro camera was a plenoptic, or light field, camera. Light field cameras capture information about the intensity together with the direction of light emanating from a scene. Conventional cameras record only light intensity at various wavelengths.
While conventional cameras capture a single high-resolution focal plane and light field cameras sacrifice resolution to "re-focus" via software after the fact, the CMU Split-Lohmann camera provides a middle ground, using an adaptive computational lens to physically focus every part of the image independently. This allows it to capture a "deep-focus" image where objects at multiple distances are sharp simultaneously, maintaining the high resolution of a conventional camera while achieving the depth flexibility of a light field camera without the blur or data loss.
Something I find interesting is that while holograms and the CMU camera both manipulate the "phase" of light, they do so for opposite reasons: a hologram records phase to recreate a 3D volume, whereas the CMU camera modulates phase to fix a 2D image.
I remember Lytro. There was a lot of fanfare behind that company and then they fizzled. They had a lauded CEO/founder and their website demonstrated clearly how the post-focus worked. It felt like they were going to be the next camera revolution. Their rise and demise story would make a good Isaacson-style documentary.
Light field cameras are mentioned under "related work":
https://imaging.cs.cmu.edu/svaf/static/pdfs/Spatially_Varyin...
The article mentions a spatial light modulator, which I believe the Lytro camera did not have.
The image(s) were also trash unfortunately and a PITA to process. Barely usable even in ideal circumstances.
eh??
Processing was as simple as "click on the thing you want in focus". and 4MP was just fine for casual use it was targetting
Paper has some more useful examples:
https://imaging.cs.cmu.edu/svaf/static/pdfs/Spatially_Varyin...
It's not even loading for me (probably because it's a huge file).
As soon as I saw the headline, I began thinking about microphotography- no more blurry microbes! I could get excited for something like this.
I also like my 3d games without DOF.
I wonder if this camera might somehow record depth information, or be modified to do such a thing.
That would make it really useful, maybe replacing carmera+lidar.