Three-dimensional information acquisition using a compound imaging system

The TOMBO (thin observation module by bound optics) system is a compound imaging system inspired by a biological visual system. Various interesting features can be utilized in the applications of the TOMBO system: in this paper, we present an effective method for three-dimensional information acquisition. An image captured by the TOMBO system is composed of multiple images observed from several viewpoints. Distance between the TOMBO system and an object can be estimated using disparity of the captured images. A new method for estimation of the object distance is introduced. In the experiment, multiple object distances can be successfully estimated by the proposed method. Using the obtained distances for image reconstruction, we can generate a composite image focussing on multiple objects. (C) 2007 The Optical Society of Japan.