Depth-controlled reconstruction of 3D integral image using synthesized intermediate sub-images

In this paper, we propose a method that controls the depth of the three-dimensional (3D) object existing over the depth-of-focus in integral imaging. The depth control method is performed only in a computer by synthesizing the intermediate sub-images between original sub-images obtained by transforming the captured elemental images. In the reconstruction process, we can obtain reconstructed 3D images with the better image quality within depth-of-focus than that reconstructed over the depth-of-focus. To demonstrate the feasibility of our method, optical and computational experiments are carried out and its results are presented. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.