Effects of Number of Lenses in Microlens Arrays on Field of View in Integral Imaging Systems

Abstract

In integral imaging, the microlens array (MLA) is the key element for capturing 3D information. The microlens array can be used to encode light originating from different directions into the photosensor, producing images called elemental images. By extracting and rearranging the pixels in each elemental image, one can obtain images from different view angles, known as sub-images. Elemental images can also be used for depth reconstruction. This paper computationally reconstructs the object planes of different depths, using a blocking mask to investigate the effects of the number of lenses in the microlens array on the field of view. It is found that the MLA field of view increases with the number of lenses, but the resolution of the resulting sub-images can be improved by increasing the amount of light information captured by each lens.