Depth of field expansion method for integral imaging based on diffractive optical element and CNN.

In lens-based display systems, lens aberrations and depth of field (DoF) limitation often lead to blurring and distortion of reconstructed images; Meanwhile, expanding the display DoF will face a trade-off between horizontal resolution and axial resolution, restricting the achievement of high-resolution and large DoF three-dimensional (3D) displays. To overcome these constraints and enhance the DoF and resolution of reconstructed scenes, we propose a DoF expansion method based on diffractive optical element (DOE) optimization and image pre-correction through a convolutional neural network (CNN). This method applies DOE instead of the conventional lens and optimizes DOE phase distribution using the Adam algorithm, achieving depth-invariant and concentrated point spread function (PSF) distribution throughout the entire DoF range; Simultaneously, we utilize a CNN to pre-correct the original images and compensate for the image quality reduction introduced by the DOE. The proposed method is applied to a practical integral imaging system, we effectively extend the DoF of the DOE to 400 mm, leading to a high-resolution 3D display in multiple depth planes. To validate the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed method, we conduct numerical simulations and optical experiments.