Pixel Based Random Access Image Sensor Array for Real-time IBR

In the field of computer graphics, a new method called Image-Based Rendering (IBR) has been researched. With this method, 3D arbitrary-view images can be synthesized from array of input images. However, most of the current researches are concentrated on static scenes because of the difficulty to handle heavy amount of multiple video inputs. A few works that are deal with video scenes have another problem of the spatial resolution. The authors adopt random access image sensor for the camera array. In our system, each sensor outputs only the pixels that are externally selected, so that the total readout data from the camera array is reduced to the necessary and sufficient for the rendering. We designed and implemented pixel based random access image sensor with 0.8μm CMOS technology. We made a camera array system with sixteen of the prototype. In this paper, we will present our design of random access CMOS image sensors and the construction of the camera array system. Evaluation of the prototype sensor and the results of the arbitrary-view synthesis will also be described.