Abstract

Introducing polarization into transient imaging improves depth estimation in participating media, by discriminating reflective from scattered light transport and calculating depth from the former component only. Previous works have leveraged this approach under the assumption of uniform polarization properties. However, the orientation and intensity of polarization inside scattering media is nonuniform, both in the spatial and temporal domains. As a result of this simplifying assumption, the accuracy of the estimated depth worsens significantly as the optical thickness of the medium increases. In this Letter, we introduce a novel adaptive polarization-difference method for transient imaging, taking into account the nonuniform nature of polarization in scattering media. Our results demonstrate a superior performance for impulse-based transient imaging over previous unpolarized or uniform approaches.

© 2018 Optical Society of America

Scattering robust 3D reconstruction via polarized transient imaging

Rihui Wu, Jinli Suo, Feng Dai, Yongdong Zhang, and Qionghai Dai
Opt. Lett. 41(17) 3948-3951 (2016)

Depth of field extended scattering imaging by light field estimation

Xin Jin, Zhouping Wang, Xiaoyu Wang, and Qionghai Dai
Opt. Lett. 43(20) 4871-4874 (2018)

Imaging through extreme scattering in extended dynamic media

A. V. Kanaev, A. T. Watnik, D. F. Gardner, C. Metzler, K. P. Judd, P. Lebow, K. M. Novak, and J. R. Lindle
Opt. Lett. 43(13) 3088-3091 (2018)

Polarization-difference imaging: a biologically inspired technique for observation through scattering media

M. P. Rowe, E. N. Pugh, J. S. Tyo, and N. Engheta
Opt. Lett. 20(6) 608-610 (1995)

Non-line-of-sight imaging in the presence of scattering media using phasor fields

Pablo Luesia, Miguel Crespo, Adrian Jarabo, and Albert Redo-Sanchez
Opt. Lett. 47(15) 3796-3799 (2022)