Large-scale elemental image array generation in integral imaging based on scale invariant feature transform and discrete viewpoint acquisition

Abstract We propose and demonstrate an approach that uses scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) and discrete viewpoint acquisition to generate large-scale elemental image array (EIA) in integral imaging. To our knowledge, the cost of acquiring the large-scale EIA with a camera array in integral imaging system is very high. To solve this problem, we adopt the discrete viewpoint pickup platform to obtain discrete viewpoint images and a small-scale EIA. The discrete viewpoint images have enough effective pixels to form the large-scale EIA for display, but they lack accurate perspective information. In contrast, the small-scale EIA has accurate perspective information, but there are not enough effective pixels in it. Therefore, we adopt SIFT descriptors to correct the perspective information of the discrete viewpoint images according to the small-scale EIA. In this way, a large-scale EIA with accurate perspective information is obtained. The proposed method, which is not only suitable for computational integral imaging, but also for real scene acquisition and optical display, can effectively decrease costs and workload. We present the simulation and experimental results and the quality evaluation to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed generation method.