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Recording and controlling the 4D light field in a microscope using microlens arrays
Author(s) -
LEVOY M.,
ZHANG Z.,
MCDOWALL I.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of microscopy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.569
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2818
pISSN - 0022-2720
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2818.2009.03195.x
Subject(s) - microlens , optics , microscope , projector , snapshot (computer storage) , ray , optical microscope , computer science , image plane , depth of field , light sheet fluorescence microscopy , field of view , microscopy , diffraction , focus (optics) , physics , computer vision , lens (geology) , scanning electron microscope , scanning confocal electron microscopy , image (mathematics) , operating system
Summary By inserting a microlens array at the intermediate image plane of an optical microscope, one can record four‐dimensional light fields of biological specimens in a single snapshot. Unlike a conventional photograph, light fields permit manipulation of viewpoint and focus after the snapshot has been taken, subject to the resolution of the camera and the diffraction limit of the optical system. By inserting a second microlens array and video projector into the microscope's illumination path, one can control the incident light field falling on the specimen in a similar way. In this paper, we describe a prototype system we have built that implements these ideas, and we demonstrate two applications for it: simulating exotic microscope illumination modalities and correcting for optical aberrations digitally.