Computational Light Field Imaging and Display
Speaker: Gordon Wetzstein
Affiliation: Professor, Stanford University
EE297 Seminar Series
Abstract: Immersive visual and experiential computing systems, i.e. VR/AR, are entering the consumer market and have the potential to profoundly impact our society. Applications of these systems range from communication, entertainment, education, collaborative work, simulation and training to telesurgery, phobia treatment, and basic vision research. In every immersive experience, the primary interface between the user and the digital world is the near-eye display. Thus, developing near-eye display systems that provide a high-quality user experience is of the utmost importance. Many characteristics of near-eye displays that define the quality of an experience, such as resolution, refresh rate, contrast, and field of view, have been significantly improved over the last years. However, focus cues are not supported by any existing near-eye display. In this talk, we explore unprecedented display modes afforded by near-eye light field displays with the goal of increasing visual comfort and providing more realistic visual experiences. We will also cover an analysis of the fundamental diffraction-imposed spatio-angular resolution tradeoff of light field imaging systems, and will describe coded-aperture-style acquisition schemes that can computationally reshape this tradeoff. We begin with light field photography where the goal, unachievable with conventional light field camera designs, is to record light fields with simultaneously high angular and spatial resolution. To surpass existing resolution limitations, we computationally reconstruct a high resolution light field from multiple photographs captured with different perspectives and f-number settings. We next explore the limits of fluorescence light field microscopy (LFM), where the goal is to reconstruct a volume with high lateral and axial spatial resolution. As microscopy applications are often particularly sensitive to resolution, even more so than with photography, poor resolution has hindered widespread adoption of existing LFM. We present a new design termed the Aperture-interference Light Field (ALF) microscope, and we demonstrate in simulation and with a prototype that significant resolution improvement is possible beyond conventional LFM.
Biography: Gordon Wetzstein is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Computer Science at Stanford University. He is the leader of the Stanford Computational Imaging Group, an interdisciplinary research group focused on advancing imaging, microscopy, and display systems. At the intersection of computer graphics, machine vision, optics, scientific computing, and perception, Prof. Wetzstein’s research has a wide range of applications in next-generation consumer electronics, scientific imaging, human-computer interaction, remote sensing, and many other areas. Prior to joining Stanford in 2014, Prof. Wetzstein was a Research Scientist in the Camera Culture Group at the MIT Media Lab. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia in 2011 and graduated with Honors from the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany before that. His doctoral dissertation focuses on computational light modulation for image acquisition and display and won the Alain Fournier Ph.D. Dissertation Annual Award. He organized the IEEE 2012 and 2013 International Workshops on Computational Cameras and Displays, founded displayblocks.org as a forum for sharing computational display design instructions with the DIY community, and presented a number of courses on Computational Displays and Computational Photography at ACM SIGGRAPH. Gordon is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, he won best paper awards at the International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP) in 2011 and 2014 as well as a Laval Virtual Award in 2005.
For more information contact Professors Suhas Diggavi & Mani Srivastava
Date/Time:
Date(s) - Nov 28, 2016
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Location:
EE-IV Shannon Room #54-134
420 Westwood Plaza - 5th Flr., Los Angeles CA 90095