[echeng]

This isn't just slightly wrong—it's totally wrong. All you have to do is look at a tear down to see that there are far more than 9 microlenses (which do not correspond to different focal lengths). I highly recommend that you read Ren's dissertation again before you speak authoritatively on the subject again. I'm not sure how you could read it and come to the conclusions in this post.

Also, I'm the person in the video you posted. Please let me how I "tripped up."

[havemurci]

Hi Eric,

In the interview you didn't answer the question posed. Could you please answer it now?

"A typical digital camera captures one image. Isn't what you're doing, in a sense, capturing a thousand different images with each image?"

Am I wrong in assuming that there is a matrix of 9 images which is repeated across the sensor? It was my impression that each microlens was superimposed over a 10x10 array of pixels, such that the entire matrix covered a 30x30 pixel area, and there are 108x108 microlens arrays, for a total of 104,976 microlenses?

I admit that I was wrong in my choice of words concerning focal length. I meant that within each matrix of 9 microlenses, one of them doesn't bend the light, while 4 of them bring items closer than the unbent light into focus, and the other 4 bring farther items into focus.

With that, your software creates 9 different images that focus on light coming from objects 9 different distances from your camera. Is that correct?

I never said there were only 9 microlenses. In my original post I said there was a repeated array of 9 microlenses. Each type of microlens is processed into one 'layer'. Is that wrong?