Three-dimensional polarimetric computational integral imaging

In this paper, we propose a novel 3D polarimetric computational integral imaging system by using polarization diversity of objects under natural illumination conditions. In the system, the measured Stokes polarization parameters are utilized to generate degree of polarization images of a 3D scene. Based on degree of polarization images and original 2D images, we utilize a modified computational reconstruction method to perform 3D polarimetric image reconstruction. The system may be used to detect or classify objects with distinct polarization signatures in 3D space. Experimental results also show the proposed system may mitigate the effect of occlusion in 3D reconstruction. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America