Close-range photogrammetry with light field camera: from disparity map to absolute distance

A new approach to measure the 3D profile of a texture object is proposed utilizing light field imaging, in which three key steps are required: a disparity map is first obtained by detecting the slopes in the epipolar plane image with the multilabel technique; the intrinsic parameters of the light field camera are then extracted by camera calibration; at last, the relationship between disparity values and real distances is built up by depth calibration. In the last step, a linear calibration method is proposed to achieve accurate results. Furthermore, the depth error is also investigated and compensated for by reusing the checkerboard pattern. The experimental results are in good agreement with the 3D models, and also indicate that the light field imaging is a promising 3D measurement technique. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America