ESTIMATION OF COMPLEX LIGHT DISTRIBUTION CHRACTERISTIC BASED ON LIGHT FIELDS

With the advent of LED lights and the added functionality of the lights themselves, the number of automobile headlights being manufactured is rising. Manufactured headlights need to be measured for light distribution characteristic to assure their quality. However, the conventional method requires a lot of measurement time and a large space. As a result, problems arise where light distribution measurement cannot be completed in time for headlight production. We propose a measurement method for complex light distribution characteristic based on light fields to solve this problem. Our method is to measure the light intensity of planes at a certain range distance from the light source and then estimate the light distribution characteristic of a light source. This method would enable the measurement of the light distribution characteristic in a narrower range and in a shorter time than the conventional method.

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.