Depth measurements through controlled aberrations of projected patterns

Three-dimensional displays have become increasingly present in consumer markets. However, the ability to capture three-dimensional images in space confined environments and without major modifications to current cameras is uncommon. Our goal is to create a simple modification to a conventional camera that allows for three dimensional reconstruction. We require such an imaging system have imaging and illumination paths coincident. Furthermore, we require that any three-dimensional modification to a camera also permits full resolution 2D image capture. Here we present a method of extracting depth information with a single camera and aberrated projected pattern. A commercial digital camera is used in conjunction with a projector system with astigmatic focus to capture images of a scene. By using an astigmatic projected pattern we can create two different focus depths for horizontal and vertical features of a projected pattern, thereby encoding depth. By designing an aberrated projected pattern, we are able to exploit this differential focus in post-processing designed to exploit the projected pattern and optical system. We are able to correlate the distance of an object at a particular transverse position from the camera to ratios of particular wavelet coefficients. We present our information regarding construction, calibration, and images produced by this system. The nature of linking a projected pattern design and image processing algorithms will be discussed.