Coded Aperture Photography

 
Ashok Veeraraghavan, Ramesh Raskar, Amit Agrawal, Ankit Mohan and Jack Tumblin
ACM SIGGRAPH 2007

Coded Aperture Camera: By simply inserting a mask in the aperture plane of the lens, one can achieve high quality deblurring and full resolution digital refocusing from a single coded aperture image.


Figure shows an extreme example of image defocus blur. The input photo on the left was blurred using a 7 by 7 invertible amplitude mask pattern. The amount of blur is 21 pixels. Deblurring results in sharp image. Note the small text on the right which is completely washed out in the captured photo. Also notice that the blur is not circular as in a traditional out-of-focus image, but corresponds to the shape of the mask used.


This coded aperture design is one of the two mask based designs proposed in our SIGGRAPH 2007 paper. The other design puts a high frequency mask close to the sensor to capture light field. It achieves digital refocusing a low spatial resolution, but does not require PSF estimation, since the entire light field is captured.


Following examples show full resolution digital refocusing. In these examples, a single coded aperutre photo was captured using Canon Digital Rebel XT SLR camera with 100mm focal length lens. After estimating layered depths, refocusing is achieved to bring out of focus regions into focus. Again notice that the out of focus blur is shaped according to the 7 by 7 mask pattern used while capturing the photo.



Notice that the face becomes sharp in the refocused image, while the painting gets blurred.






Copyright 2006-2010 Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories All Rights Reserved.

Permission to use, copy and modify softwares linked from this page and its documentation without fee for educational, research and non-profit purposes, is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and the following three paragraphs appear in all copies.

To request permission to incorporate this software into commercial products contact: Vice President of Marketing and Business Development; Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL), 201 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139 or .


IN NO EVENT SHALL MERL BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF MERL HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

MERL SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND MERL HAS NO OBLIGATIONS TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS OR MODIFICATIONS.



More details on SIGGRAPH 2007 Paper


Back to my homepage