Fast rendering and display of light field images with a controllable lighting mechanism

Abstract

A fast light field (LF) image rendering method with controllable lighting mechanism is proposed and demonstrated. It solves the issue that previous image-based methods could not render and edit lighting effects for LF images. In contrast to previous methods, light cones and normal maps are defined and used to expand the RGBD images into RGBDNθ data, which gives more degrees of freedom to render LF images. Conjugate cameras are used to capture the RGBDN data, which simultaneously solve the pseudoscopic imaging problem. Perspective coherence is used to accelerate the RGBDNθ-based LF rendering process, which has been shown to be on average 30 times faster than the traditional per-viewpoint rendering (PVR) method. Vivid three-dimensional (3D) images with Lambertian reflection and non-Lambertian reflection effects including specular lighting and compound lighting have been reconstructed in 3D space using a homemade LF display system. The proposed method injects more flexibility into the rendering of LF images and can also be used in holographic display, augmented reality, virtual reality, and other fields.