Capturing multiple full-scene images with a single camera via aperture stop exploitation

Abstract

In an effort to increase the capability of modern camera systems, recent advances in imaging technology have seen the maturation of postprocessing and demosaicing algorithms, multispectral imagers, and scene-splitting techniques. Although highly enabling, each of these methods faces an inherent limitation imposed by the camera’s geometry. By reevaluating the fundamental components of the camera, this study presents a new method and paradigm in capturing and processing scene information. The proposed camera design is validated and optimized using Zemax simulations. The results show that light entering a camera can be split into three independent, spatially separated, full-scene images, wherein each image retains all spectral, polarimetric, and relative intensity information of the original scene.