Integral Imaging Capture System With Tunable Field of View Based on Liquid Crystal Microlenses

In recent years, research on autostereoscopic vision has grown rapidly. One of the most promising technologies in order to capture and reproduce three-dimensional images is integral imaging (InI). Until now, most of the proposed technologies use microlens arrays in order to reproduce and capture this type of images. One disadvantage is the fixed parameters of these devices. In this letter, an InI capture system with a tunable field of view (FOV) is demonstrated. For this, a microlens array based on liquid crystal technology is used in order to have tunability of some important characteristics of the rendered images such as angular vision. The focal length of each microlens ranges from 2 to 0.5 mm when the applied voltage changes from 1.2 to 2.6
$\text{V}_{\mathrm {rms}}$
, respectively. This mutual dependence, between voltage and focal length, also produces a tunable FOV of an InI capture system ranging from 3° to 12°. A numerical reconstruction algorithm is used in order to synthesize several new views of a scene from different viewpoints and demonstrate this effect.