Development of a Modular, High-Speed Plenoptic Camera for Flow Tomography

Modern 3D flow tomography tools rely on simultaneous imaging of the test volume from multiple perspectives. For time-resolved measurements, this requires using one high-speed camera for each perspective, which can be cost-prohibitive. Furthermore, many experimental facilities (e.g., high-pressure rigs) do not have the optical access to allow for multiple cameras. To address this challenge, our study focused on the development of a Modular Plenoptic Adaptor (MPA) to enable light-field imaging capability in standard high-speed cameras. A single MPA-enabled camera is capable of time-resolved 3D PIV measurements, while 2-4 cameras may be used for 3D scalar-field measurements (compared to traditional tomography’s >7). In this talk, we introduce the principles of plenoptic flow measurement, and showcase key results from preliminary tests of the MPA, which include: (i) proof of spatially accurate (<1% error) reconstruction within a 50x32x50mm volume, (ii) post-capture refocusing and perspective manipulation in high-speed videos and (iii) volumetric reconstruction of a droplets field along with time-resolved 3D PIV measurements. Proposed future works include validating the MPA system’s PIV performance on canonical flow-fields such as a vortex ring and uniform flow.