Automated Robust Metric Calibration Algorithm for Multifocus Plenoptic Cameras

The concept of plenoptic cameras has existed since the early 1900s, with recent advances in computational power making them a viable tool for industrial measurement applications. Plenoptic cameras can give 3-D information for every point of the scene with one camera, one lens, and a single image. This is possible by placing a microlens array directly in front of the image sensor. The depth estimation is based on disparities observed in neighboring microlens images, similar to stereo camera approaches. To relate these so-called virtual depth units to metric distances, a camera calibration must be performed. This paper presents a robust, automated camera calibration technique, which introduces new ways to model a multifocus plenoptic camera.