Review of light field technologies

Light fields are vector functions that map the geometry of light rays to the corresponding plenoptic attributes. They describe the holographic information of scenes by representing the amount of light flowing in every direction through every point in space. The physical concept of light fields was first proposed in 1936, and light fields are becoming increasingly important in the field of computer graphics, especially with the fast growth of computing capacity as well as network bandwidth. In this article, light field imaging is reviewed from the following aspects with an emphasis on the achievements of the past five years: (1) depth estimation, (2) content editing, (3) image quality, (4) scene reconstruction and view synthesis, and (5) industrial products because the technologies of lights fields also intersect with industrial applications. State-of-the-art research has focused on light field acquisition, manipulation, and display. In addition, the research has extended from the laboratory to industry. According to these achievements and challenges, in the near future, the applications of light fields could offer more portability, accessibility, compatibility, and ability to visualize the world.