Refocussing a single light-field photograph

Last time I blogged about the interesting talk given by Will Wright at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference. Will’s talk was a spell-binding overview of current visualization and entertainment trends, and the role that human psychology and aesthetics plays within it. However, SIGGRAPH also has a more facts-and-numbers side – there actually is an academic conference hiding between all the glitz and glamour. (The one with technical papers.)

Now when I say “conference” I immediately conjure up images of badly dressed nerds in exotic locations, getting all excited about mind-numbingly boring topics, and then getting drunk and trying to hit on the only attractive girl among the several hundred conference-goers. But in SIGGRAPH’s case, at least, the topics are not all that mind-numbingly boring. Because in addition to the academic quality enforced by the reviewers, there is also a strong emphasis on originality, and a “what can this be used for, and does it look cool?” criteria.

There were several very interesting sessions, some of which focused on

• Realistic simulation of fluid, fire, and computer animation physics
• Human-computer interaction (Holographic teleconferencing with eye tracking, 3D with focused-ultrasound force-feedback)
• Smart image editing (Resizing images without visibly cropping or distorting the content, and automatic black-and-white to colour conversion)
• Making deformable 3D computer meshes, and then doing crazy things to them – like squashing a bunny and ripping a cow in two
• 3D visualization of scientific data – complete with 3D glasses! (watching the Sun’s erupting surface, or travelling through an Egyptian mummy)

For this blog post, however, I want to talk about the “computational cameras” session. These talks might give you a glimpse into the future of photography…