Inverse filters for reconstruction of arbitrarily focused images from two differently focused images

This paper describes a novel filtering method to reconstruct an arbitrarily focused image from two differently focused images. Based on the assumption that image scene has two layers-foreground and background-, two differently focused images are used as inputs, one of which is focused on the foreground and the other is focused on the background. The linear equation that holds between these images and the desired image, which is derived from their imaging models, can be formulated as an image restoration problem. This paper shows that the solution of this problem exists as an inverse filter and the desired image can be reconstructed only by the linear filters. As a result, fast reconstruction with high accuracy can be achieved. Experiments using real images are shown