Evaluation of Lateral Resolution of Light Field Cameras

Published

September 8, 2018

Author(s)

Sowon Joy Yoon, Peter Bajcsy, Maritoni A. Litorja, James J. Filliben

Abstract

Light field cameras are an emerging imaging device for acquiring 3-D information of a scene by capturing a field of light rays traveling in space. As light field cameras become portable, hand- held, and affordable, their potential as a 3-D measurement instrument is growing in many applications, including 3-D evidence imaging in crime scene investigations. We evaluated the lateral resolution of commercially available light field cameras, which is one of the fundamental specifications of imaging instruments. For the evaluation of the camera's lateral resolution, we imaged Siemens stars under various imaging configurations and experimental conditions, including changes in distance between the camera and the resolution target plate, illumination, zoom level, location of the Siemens star in the camera's field-of-view, and cameras of the same model. The analysis results from a full factorial experiment showed that (i) when a lower zoom level of the camera was used, the lateral resolution tended not to be affected by distance; however, when a higher zoom level was used, it tended to decrease significantly with respect to the distance, (ii) the center region of the camera's field-of-view provided a better lateral resolution than the peripheral regions, (iii) a higher zoom level yielded a higher lateral resolution, (iv) the two cameras of the same model used in the study did not show a significant difference in the lateral resolution, and (v) changes in illumination did not affect the lateral resolution of the cameras.

Citation

Optical Engineering

Volume

57

Issue

9

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.57.9.093101

Keywords

light field camera, lateral resolution, Siemens star, modulation transfer function, factorial experiment

Citation

, S. , Bajcsy, P. , Litorja, M. and Filliben, J. (2018), Evaluation of Lateral Resolution of Light Field Cameras, Optical Engineering, [online], https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.57.9.093101 (Accessed April 19, 2024)