Panoramic single-aperture multi-sensor light field camera

We describe a panoramic camera using one monocentric lens and an array of light field (LF) sensors to capture overlapping contiguous regions of the spherical image surface. Refractive sub-field consolidators divide the light before the image surface and concentrate the sub-images onto the optically active areas of adjacent CMOS sensors. We show the design of a 160 degrees x 24 degrees field-of-view (FOV) LF camera, and experimental test of a three sensor F/2.5 96 degrees x 24 degrees and five sensor (25 MPixel) F/4 140 degrees x 24 degrees camera. We demonstrate computational field curvature correction, refocusing, resolution enhancement, and depth mapping of a laboratory scene. We also present a 155 degrees full circular field camera design compatible with LF or direct 164 MPixel sensing of 13 spherical sub-images, fitting within a one inch diameter sphere. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement