[HN Gopher] Light field camera inspired by an extinct trilobite
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       Light field camera inspired by an extinct trilobite
        
       Author : leephillips
       Score  : 29 points
       Date   : 2022-04-30 17:43 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.dpreview.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.dpreview.com)
        
       | adg001 wrote:
       | I wonder how this line of research will be commercially
       | exploited.
       | 
       | Although the reached depth of field was much shorter, this work
       | reminds me about Lytro [0] Illum, a camera capable of refocusing
       | the image after being taken. Announced in 2014 it received
       | significant hype, but it never reached commercial success. One
       | factor that hindered its adoption was the absence of a standard
       | file format and the corresponding viewers for their "living
       | pictures" - adopters were forced to publish their images on
       | Lytro's website in order to allow viewers the ability to refocus
       | the image.
       | 
       | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytro
        
         | jedimastert wrote:
         | I recall somewhere that this same type of optics can make
         | heads-up displays that have depth of field as perceptible to
         | the eye, but I can't find the reference. It does sort of make
         | sense tho
         | 
         | > commercially exploited
         | 
         | I feel like this is an odd way to put it.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | adg001 wrote:
           | > > commercially exploited
           | 
           | > I feel like this is an odd way to put it
           | 
           | Actually this is the standard way to put it, at least in my
           | corner of the globe (i.e., europa.eu)
        
           | ChadNauseam wrote:
           | > I recall somewhere that this same type of optics can make
           | heads-up displays that have depth of field as perceptible to
           | the eye, but I can't find the reference. It does sort of make
           | sense tho
           | 
           | Yeah, the lack of this effect is one reason that VR games
           | cause nausea. Unfortunately, even if light field displays
           | were cheap (they're not), rendering to them was extremely
           | expensive last I checked (around 50x more expensive than
           | running in stereo)
        
         | asperous wrote:
         | If high quality light field displays become common place they
         | might be. Think like a 3D display that looks more like a window
         | then a display.
        
       | swagasaurus-rex wrote:
       | > The camera utilizes a multiscale convolutional neural network-
       | based reconstruction algorithm to eliminate optical aberrations
       | that result from the camera's 'metalens' array
       | 
       | This is definitely cool, but I wonder what effect this has on the
       | image quality for unusual lighting conditions. Now you have to
       | content not just with optical aberrations, but also the
       | correction algorithm.
        
         | kevingadd wrote:
         | In general you're already contending with correction algorithms
         | any time you use a digital camera, so that's not as big of a
         | problem as you might think.
         | 
         | Even if you shoot in "raw" there's probably a proprietary or
         | pseudo-proprietary bit of software in your image editor that
         | runs demosaicing, lens correction etc on the data from the
         | camera sensor.
        
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