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Optimal Depth Estimation and Extended Depth of Field from Single Images by Computational Imaging using Chromatic Aberrations

Atif, Muhammad

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Abstract

The thesis presents a thorough analysis of a computational imaging approach to estimate the optimal depth, and the extended depth of field from a single image using axial chromatic aberrations. To assist a camera design process, a digital camera simulator is developed which can efficiently simulate different kind of lenses for a 3D scene. The main contribution in the simulator is the fast implementation of space variant filtering and accurate simulation of optical blur at occlusion boundaries. The simulator also includes sensor modeling and digital post processing to facilitate a co-design of optics and digital processing algorithms.

To estimate the depth from color images, which are defocused to different amount due to axial chromatic aberrations, a low cost algorithm is developed. Due to varying contrast across colors, a local contrast independent blur measure is proposed. The normalized ratios between the blur measure of all three colors (red, green and blue) are used to estimate the depth for a larger distance range. The analysis of depth errors is performed, which shows the limitations of depth from chromatic aberrations, especially for narrowband object spectra. Since the blur changes over the field and hence depth, therefore, a simple calibration procedure is developed to correct the field varying behavior of estimated depth. A prototype lens is designed with optimal amount of axial chromatic aberrations for a focal length of 4 mm and F-number 2.4. The real captured and synthetic images show the depth measurement with the root mean square error of 10% in the distance range of 30 cm to 2 m.

Taking the advantage of chromatic aberrations and estimated depth, a method is proposed to extend the depth of field of the captured image. An imaging sensor with white (W) pixel along with red, green and blue (RGB) pixels with a lens exhibiting axial chromatic aberrations is used to overcome the limitations of previous methods. The proposed method first restores the white image with depth invariant point spread function, and then transfers the sharpness information of the sharpest color or white image to blurred colors. Due to broadband color filter responses, the blur of each RGB color at its focus position is larger in case of chromatic aberrations as compared to chromatic aberrations corrected lens. Therefore, restored white image helps in getting a sharper image for these positions, and also for the objects where the sharpest color information is missing. An efficient implementation of the proposed algorithm achieves better image quality with low computational complexity.

Finally, the performance of the depth estimation and extended depth of field is studied for different camera parameters. The criteria are defined to select optimal lens and sensor parameters to acquire desired results with the proposed digital post processing algorithms.

Document type: Dissertation
Supervisor: Jähne, Prof. Dr. Bernd
Date of thesis defense: 14 October 2013
Date Deposited: 17 Oct 2013 12:13
Date: 2013
Faculties / Institutes: The Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science > Department of Computer Science
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