Depth from Focus

Here are some typical microscope images (showing a surface, which has been shaped using a power beam).

First surfi-sculpt object

Second surfi-sculpt object

Piece of Suevit (enamel like material from meteorite impact) from the Nördlinger Ries

Using a focus-stack one can compute images with extended depth of focus:

Extended depth of view for first object

Extended depth of view for second object

Extended depth of view for Suevit (fringes have been removed manually)

If the surface can be illuminated properly, one can even do a 3D-reconstruction of the surface:

3D reconstruction of first object (742kB video)	3D reconstruction of second object (725kB video)	[[Image:suevit20.png	300px|3D reconstruction of suevit (1.4MB video)]]
Stereo picture of first object (2.2MB video)

As the idea for the algorithm was fixed already, it was possible to implement the algorithm as a command-line tool in less than 4 days, using existing Mimas-software (exspecially the operators for boost::multi_array).

As this is a "quick hack", there's still lots of space for improvements.

Links

• german diploma thesis about depth of focus (also available as PDF)
• Mechrob-paper Focus set based reconstruction of micro-objects