Extending depth of field scheme combined with focal plane shift

Abstract

There exists a trade-off between the depth of field and the image resolution when the depth of field is extended by the wave-front coding method. The trade-off originates from the extension method and the inevitable detector noise. An adaptive imaging system can resolve this by minimizing extension of the depth of field to get the image of the highest resolution. In this paper, a focal plane shift method to minimize the depth extension is introduced and the trade-off relationship and the proposed concept are investigated by simulation. The trade-off is characterized by applying a set of focus measures to depth-extended images, and the proposed concept is verified by some test images.