Lightfield imaging systems were brought to market for consumer and professional media recording. But so far, this technology is less known for applications in the industrial space. The unique optical concept developed by K Lens allows to capture multiple perspectives of a scene with a single exposure as regular colour images on the camera sensor. The current design is tailored to capture 9 different perspectives. Effectively, such a lens turns any camera without any modification of the camera into a 3D camera. It even makes it possible to record 3D video and instantaneously view it in 3D. This technology has unique benefits specifically for applications requiring the inspection of small and deep structures. For example, capturing 3D information of small pins in electric plugs with high walls is possible with such an optical system. The optical concept can be adapted to different measurement volumes. An optimization routine has been developed to identify if there is a solution for a certain application and which performance parameter could be achieved. Two different types of depth estimation algorithms have been developed which utilize the multiple perspectives. While the optical flow based classical approach allows for manual optimization the machine learning (CNN-based) approach appears to be more robust.
The paper outlines the technical principles of the optical concept and points out application areas where such an optical concept has unique advantages. It also gives an indication of the achievable performance in terms of depth resolution based on a mathematical simulation model as well as from measurements using a first prototype. Some examples from real objects conclude the paper.
Digital In-line Holographic Microscopy (DIHM) is a two-steps microscopy technique that allows for accessing to
complex wave information of the optical field scattered by a sample. Initially, the sample is illuminated by a spherical
wavefront such that the amplitude superposition of the portions of the spherical wavefront scattered and not by sample,
is recorded on a digital camera; the recorded intensity is often referred as in-line hologram. On the second step, a
numerical diffraction scheme is used to emulate the diffraction of a spherical wavefront by the in-line hologram
therefore producing a reconstruction in amplitude and phase of the original object. Due to its evident experimental
simplicity, DIHM is a widely used technique for in-situ applications and more recently on real time measurements. This
widespread employment of the technique introduces the necessity of establishing the practical limits achievable with this
imaging technique. Particularly, for the practical study of mono-disperse colloids, the critical concentration is a relevant
factor to identify, in order to establish the optimal conditions up to which DIHM can successfully work. The
reconstruction step produces a set of intensity images, at different axial distances, containing the information of all the
recorded particles; in large study volumes and high concentrations the number of particles overcome the easiness of
manual processing and therefore evidences the need of implementing more automatic tracking algorithms. In this way
the limits of applicability of DIHM rely on both the experimental configuration and the digital processing. With the use
of a modeling tool for DIHM and a semi-automatic tracking algorithm, a numerical estimation of the concentration limit
for which DIHM can work is proposed, following the analysis for its dependence with the experimental configuration of
the recording process.
The numerical reconstruction of digitally recorded holograms has constituted the bottle neck for real-time digital
holography. The reconstruction process can be understood as the diffraction that undergoes a wavefront as it illuminates
the digitally recorded hologram. As this process is done numerically, the reconstruction of a M × N pixels hologram into
an image of similar dimensions is an operation with a Ο (M × N)2 complexity. The diffraction process can be represented
by a Fresnel transform or a scalable convolution of the recorded hologram. In these representations the numerical
reconstruction has a complexity of Ο (M × log N)2, still quite demanding computationally if the holograms are of 2048 × 2048 pixels. In this work, the power provided by a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is used to accelerate the numerical
reconstruction of digitally recorded holograms. The methodology is supported on the parallelization of typical Fresnel
transform and scalable reconstruction algorithms. On reconstructing holograms of 2048 × 2048 pixels, the reconstruction
is speeded up 20 times for the former method and 11 times for the scalable convolution. For holograms of 1024 × 1024,
the accelerated reconstruction methods allow for real-time digital holography.
The numerical reconstruction of digitally recorded holograms can be done via different approaches. Convolution,
angular spectrum and Fresnel transform are the most widely used. The size of the reconstruction pixel equals that of the
recording device for the two former and for the latter that size is controlled by the experimental parameters; wavelength,
number of pixels and reconstruction distance determine the achievable size of the of the reconstructed pitch hence the
magnification of the holographic system. It has been a challenge to have a numerical reconstruction method in which the
magnification can be chosen at will. In this work, a method for numerical reconstruction of digitally recorded holograms
with variable magnification is presented. It is supported on the Fresnel-Bluestein transform that allows for changing the
magnification, namely the size of the reconstruction pixel, independent of distances, wavelength and number of pixels.
The method is applied to reconstruct holograms recorded in off-axis and in-line setups. The reached magnification is
contrasted with that achieved as the holograms are reconstructed with Fresnel transform. Since the proposed method
does not modify the number of pixels of the hologram, neither the wavelength nor the reconstruction distance, it suits for
application like color digital holography, metrological application among others.
The concept of spatial coherence wavelet has been introduced some years ago with very productive results. It has given
new insight on the fundamental optical phenomena, and has predicted novel light characteristics like polarizations
domain and transverse energy transference. The concept of marginal power spectrum emerges as the amplitude of the
wavelet and provides a phase-space representation of the optical field in any state of spatial coherence. Its values have
energy units and are carried by the spatial coherence wavelets along specific paths or rays. Some of them, called carrier
rays, are corresponding to the radiant energy of the field, but the rest, called dark (or tamasic) rays, do not contribute to
the radiant energy, i.e. they take on positive and negative values, symmetrically distributed, which are responsible for the
constructive and destructive interference after redistributing the radiant energy of the field. This description of
interference is illustrated by analyzing the Young experiment, gratings and one-dimensional apertures. Furthermore, the
principle of spatial coherence modulation is introduced, showing its feasibility for practical applications in beam
shaping.
Previous researches have shown that spatial coherence wavelets provide the phase-space representation for optical fields
in any state of coherence and polarization and can represent the radiometric properties of optical sources. In this paper,
we have developed a research about their holographic features and particularly we have found the cross-spectral density
at the observation plane should be regarded as the second-order wave reconstructed from the Fourier hologram of the
marginal power spectrum, where the power spectrum corresponds to the zeroth-order of the reconstruction and the
characteristic hermiticity of the cross-spectral density determines the twin images. In a similar way, the holographic
reconstruction of the cross-spectral density at the aperture plane has been stated, taking the marginal power spectrum as
its Fourier hologram, the power spectrum at the aperture plane related to its zeroth-order, and its twin images determined
by the hermiticity of the cross-spectral density at aperture plane. After realizing that spatial coherence wavelets can be
regarded as Wigner distribution functions with similar morphology to the hologram diagrams recently proposed for
formulating holography in the phase-space by Lohmann and Testorf, we recognized their power for providing a precise
and wide physical interpretation of optical signals in phase space which enables us to apply these holographic features in
many fields like optical coherence modulation and beam shaping.
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