A simulation framework for the design and evaluation of computational cameras

Thomas Nürnberg; Maximilian Schambach; David Uhlig; Michael Heizmann; Fernando Puente León

doi:10.1117/12.2527599

21 June 2019 A simulation framework for the design and evaluation of computational cameras

Thomas Nürnberg, Maximilian Schambach, David Uhlig, Michael Heizmann, Fernando Puente León

Proceedings Volume 11061, Automated Visual Inspection and Machine Vision III; 1106102 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2527599
Event: SPIE Optical Metrology, 2019, Munich, Germany

Abstract

In the emerging field of computational imaging, rapid prototyping of new camera concepts becomes increasingly difficult since the signal processing is intertwined with the physical design of a camera. As novel computational cameras capture information other than the traditional two-dimensional information, ground truth data, which can be used to thoroughly benchmark a new system design, is also hard to acquire. We propose to bridge this gap by using simulation. In this article, we present a raytracing framework tailored for the design and evaluation of computational imaging systems. We show that, depending on the application, the image formation on a sensor and phenomena like image noise have to be simulated accurately in order to achieve meaningful results while other aspects, such as photorealistic scene modeling, can be omitted. Therefore, we focus on accurately simulating the mandatory components of computational cameras, namely apertures, lenses, spectral filters and sensors. Besides the simulation of the imaging process, the framework is capable of generating various ground truth data, which can be used to evaluate and optimize the performance of a particular imaging system. Due to its modularity, it is easy to further extend the framework to the needs of other fields of application. We make the source code of our simulation framework publicly available and encourage other researchers to use it to design and evaluate their own camera designs.¹

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Thomas Nürnberg, Maximilian Schambach, David Uhlig, Michael Heizmann, and Fernando Puente León "A simulation framework for the design and evaluation of computational cameras", Proc. SPIE 11061, Automated Visual Inspection and Machine Vision III, 1106102 (21 June 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2527599

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