Extending the depth-of-field and ranging the scene with a shifted phase mask

Since the concept of wavefront coding was proposed, many types of phase masks have been reported to extend the depth-of-field of imaging system. Unfortunately there exist some unpleasant image artifacts in the final decoded images, especially for asymmetric phas1 e masks. In this paper, we illustrate a technique that involve shifting a phase mask laterally in pupil plane to introduce axial defocus to an imaging system, which can further be used to determine the defocus map according to the amount of image artifacts. This eventually enables recovery of extended depth-of-filed, artifacts-free decoded images together with a range map. Theoretical analyses and experimental results indicate the effectiveness of this method. Copyright © 2018 SPIE.