Coded-E2LF: Coded Aperture Light Field Imaging from Events

TL;DR

This paper introduces Coded-E2LF, a novel event-based computational imaging method that reconstructs 4-D light fields from a stationary event camera with coded aperture, enabling hardware-efficient 3-D scene capture.

Contribution

It presents the first method to reconstruct 4-D light fields with pixel-level accuracy solely from event data, advancing event-based imaging technology.

Findings

Successful real-world implementation on hardware

Achieved pixel-level accuracy in light field reconstruction

Demonstrated effectiveness in capturing 3-D scenes

Abstract

We propose Coded-E2LF (coded event to light field), a computational imaging method for acquiring a 4-D light field using a coded aperture and a stationary event-only camera. In a previous work, an imaging system similar to ours was adopted, but both events and intensity images were captured and used for light field reconstruction. In contrast, our method is purely event-based, which relaxes restrictions for hardware implementation. We also introduce several advancements from the previous work that enable us to theoretically support and practically improve light field reconstruction from events alone. In particular, we clarify the key role of a black pattern in aperture coding patterns. We finally implemented our method on real imaging hardware to demonstrate its effectiveness in capturing real 3-D scenes. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to demonstrate that a 4-D light field with pixel-level accuracy can be reconstructed from events alone. Our software and supplementary video are available from our project website.