Recently developed integral imaging techniques are reviewed. Integral imaging captures and reproduces the light rays from the object space, enabling the acquisition and the display of the three-dimensional information of the object in an efficient way. Continuous effort on integral imaging has been improving the performance of the capture and display process in various aspects, including distortion, resolution, viewing angle, and depth range. Digital data processing of the captured light rays can now visualize the three-dimensional structure of the object with a high degree of freedom and enhanced quality. This recent progress is of high interest for both industrial applications and academic research.

Recent trends in three-dimensional (3D) display technologies are very interesting in that both old-fashioned and up-to-date technologies are being actively investigated together. The release of the first commercially successful 3D display product raised new research topics in stereoscopic display. Autostereoscopic display renders a ray field of a 3D image, whereas holography replicates a wave field of it. Many investigations have been conducted on the next candidates for commercial products to resolve existing limitations. Up-to-date see-through 3D display is a concept close to the ultimate goal of presenting seamless virtual images. Although it is still far from practical use, many efforts have been made to resolve issues such as occlusion problems.

We describe and compare two methods of displaying autostereoscopic three-dimensional images by integral photography. One method is to display the image in front of the lens array, and the other method is to display the image behind the lens array. We compare and discuss these two methods from the viewpoints of lateral resolution, depth resolution, and viewing angle. We also discuss the effect of the optical parameter difference in the pickup and display.

In spite of the many advantages of integral imaging, its narrow viewing angle has been a disadvantage. We propose a method to enhance the viewing angle of integral imaging by opening and shutting each lens in the array (i.e., the elemental lenses) sequentially. We prove our idea by using a mask that has a pattern of an on-off vertical array of apertures. Moving the mask prevents the aliasing of a neighboring lens. Thus image overlap or image flipping is reduced and the viewing angle of the system is increased.

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