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A Closed-Form Focus Profile Model for Conventional Digital Cameras

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Abstract

According to the thin lens model, the classic depth of field (DOF) is defined as the distance range at which objects in front of a camera are in focus. However, the thin lens poses important practical limitations for modeling the camera focus due to its dependence on internal parameters, such as the focal length, numerical aperture and effective pixel size. In this paper, a new model for describing the focus of conventional digital cameras is proposed. The focus is modeled as the energy of the point-spread-function of the imaging system and describes the joint effect of defocus, diffraction and digitization. Experiments conducted on different acquisition devices show that the proposed model conforms accurately to the behavior of real systems and outperforms the most similar alternatives in the state-of-the-art. In addition, in contrast to the classic DOF model, the proposed approach can be used to predict the changes in the focus of conventional digital cameras when changing focus, zoom, and aperture by means of a simple calibration process.

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Notes

  1. In this paper, the lens focal length describes the power of the optics and should not be confused with the same term often used in the perspective projection model of cameras.

  2. In the sequel, uppercase letters will be used to denote the Fourier transform of the corresponding functions.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electric and Electronics Engineering, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia

    Said Pertuz

  2. Department of Electronic and Communications Technology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel Angel Garcia

  3. Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain

    Domenec Puig

  4. Department of Informatics Engineering, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia

    Henry Arguello

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  1. Said Pertuz
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  2. Miguel Angel Garcia
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  3. Domenec Puig
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  4. Henry Arguello
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Correspondence to Said Pertuz.

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Communicated by Yasuyuki Matsushita.

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Pertuz, S., Garcia, M.A., Puig, D. et al. A Closed-Form Focus Profile Model for Conventional Digital Cameras. Int J Comput Vis 124, 273–286 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11263-017-1024-8

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