Depth-of-field extension in integral imaging using multi-focus elemental images.

In integral imaging, one of the main challenges is the limited depth of field (DOF), which is mainly caused by the short focal length of the microlenses. In this paper, we propose a method to extend the DOF of a synthetic aperture integral imaging (SAII) system by realizing the image fusion method on the multi-focus elemental images with different perspectives. In the proposed system, the contour-based object extraction method combined with size correction is developed to solve size inconsistency of the objects in the misaligned elemental images. The all-in-focus elemental images (EIs) combining selected features of multi-focus elemental images are then obtained by the block-based image fusion method. In the last step, the reconstructed images with the extended DOF can be generated based on the all-in-focus EIs in the SAII system. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system.