Calibration algorithms for polarization filter array camera: survey and evaluation

A polarization filter array (PFA) camera is an imaging device capable of analyzing the polarization state of light in a snapshot manner. These cameras exhibit spatial variations, i.e., nonuniformity, in their response due to optical imperfections introduced during the nanofabrication process. Calibration is done by computational imaging algorithms to correct the data for radiometric and polarimetric errors. We reviewed existing calibration methods and applied them using a practical optical acquisition setup and a commercially available PFA camera. The goal of the evaluation is first to compare which algorithm performs better with regard to polarization error and then to investigate both the influence of the dynamic range and number of polarization angle stimuli of the training data. To our knowledge, this has not been done in previous work. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License.