Reduced-Complexity Depth Filtering and Occlusion Suppression using Modulated-Sparse Light Fields

Application of depth-selective filtering to modulated-sparse light fields towards reducing the DSP and memory complexities in real-time light field processing is investigated. A modulated-sparse light field is obtained by spatially windowing an original 4-D light-field signal, which is subsequently processed by 4-D depth-selective filters to achieve planar focus and occlusion suppression. Multidimensional spectral properties of modulated-sparse light fields are explored and demonstrative examples with real light fields are provided to show that almost similar depth filtering and occlusion suppression performance can be achieved by processing such modulated-sparse light fields, leading to significant reduction in DSP hardware and memory complexities.