Multi-aperture optical imaging systems and their mathematical light field acquisition models

Inspired by the compound eyes of insects, many multi-aperture optical imaging systems have been proposed to improve the imaging quality, e.g., to yield a high-resolution image or an image with a large field-of-view. Previous research has reviewed existing multi-aperture optical imaging systems, but few papers emphasize the light field acquisition model which is essential to bridge the gap between configuration design and application. In this paper, we review typical multi-aperture optical imaging systems (i.e., artificial compound eye, light field camera, and camera array), and then summarize general mathematical light field acquisition models for different configurations. These mathematical models provide methods for calculating the key indexes of a specific multi-aperture optical imaging system, such as the field-of-view and sub-image overlap ratio. The mathematical tools simplify the quantitative design and evaluation of imaging systems for researchers.