Light field optical flow for refractive surface reconstruction

This paper discusses a method to reconstruct a transparent flow surface from single camera shot with the aid of a Micro-lens array. An intentionally prepared high frequency background which is placed behind the refractive flow is captured and a curl-free optical flow algorithm is applied between pairs of images taken by different micro-lenses. The computed raw optical flow vector is a blend of motion parallax and background deformation vector due to the underlying flow. Subtracting the motion parallax, which is obtained by calibration, from the total op- optical flow vector yields the background deformation vector. The deflection vectors on each images are used to reconstruct the flow profile. A synthetic data set of fuel injection was used to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed algorithm and good agreement was achieved between the test and reconstructed data. Finally, real light field data of hot air created by a lighter flame is used to reconstruct and show a hot air plume surface.