Plenoptic Imaging

Plenoptic Imaging aims at studying the phenomena of light field formation, propagation, sensing and perception along with the computational methods for extracting, processing and rendering the visual information.

The PLENOPTIMA ultimate project goal is to establish new cross-sectorial, international, multi-university sustainable doctoral degree programmes in the area of plenoptic imaging and to train the first fifteen future researchers and creative professionals within these programmes for the benefit of a variety of application sectors.

PLENOPTIMA develops a cross-disciplinary approach to imaging, which includes the physics of light, new optical materials and sensing principles, signal processing methods, new computing architectures, and vision science modelling.

With this aim, PLENOPTIMA joints five of the strongest research groups in nanophotonics, imaging and machine learning in Europe with twelve innovative companies, research institutes and a pre-competitive business ecosystem developing and marketing plenoptic imaging devices and services.

PLENOPTIMA advances the plenoptic imaging theory to set the foundations for developing future imaging systems that handle visual information in fundamentally new ways, augmenting the human perceptual, creative, and cognitive capabilities.

More specifically, it develops 1) Full computational plenoptic imaging acquisition systems; 2) Pioneering models and methods for plenoptic data processing, with a focus on dimensionality reduction, compression, and inverse problems; 3) Efficient rendering and interactive visualization on immersive displays reproducing all physiological visual depth cues and enabling realistic interaction.All ESRs will be registered in Joint/Double degree doctoral programmes at academic institutions in Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden.

The programmes will be made sustainable through a set of measures in accordance with the Salzburg II Recommendations of the European University Association.