Image Formation

This set of chapters describes how images are formed. How can the light illuminating the space around us be captured by a device to form a picture? We will discuss pinhole cameras and lenses, which will let us introduce the geometry and formulation of the image formation process. We will then further develop the geometry of the image formation process in Part: Understanding Geometry. We will also describe how to interpret cameras as linear systems, which will allow us to understand and design new cameras. Together with computation, this can be used to form images in a wide range of situations, going beyond the pinhole and lens-based cameras. We will finalize by describing how color works.

Chapters Overview

• Chapter 5  Imaging introduces the pinhole camera and perspective projection.
• Chapter 6  Lenses describes how lenses can be modeled and used to address the limitations of the pinhole camera.
• Chapter 7  Cameras as Linear Systems provides a different perspective on how to think about cameras. In this chapter, we will describe cameras as linear systems, and we will describe new types of cameras.
• Chapter 8  Color covers the foundations of color perception.

Notation

• Images: We will use the \(\ell\) symbol to denote images (i.e., light). We will also use the same symbol when referring to light rays and other physical quantities.
• Matrices and vectors: We will use bold fonts to denote vectors and matrices. Lowercase letters will represent vectors, and uppercase letters will represent matrices.