Systems and methods incorporating adjustable focus and extended depth-of-field correction

A system comprising at least one server communicably coupled to client devices of N users and an imaging device, wherein the imaging device comprises a left camera and a right camera, each of the left camera and the right camera having an adjustable optical focus, wherein the at least one server is configured to:

• receive, from the client devices of the N users, information indicative of respective optical depths at which the N users are gazing;
• send, to the imaging device, information indicative of N optical depths;
• and in each cycle of N consecutive pairs of left images and right images, for M ranging from 1 to N:
• receive, from the imaging device, an Mth left image captured by adjusting the optical focus of the left camera according to an Mth optical depth from amongst the N optical depths;
• select the Mth left image for at least one user who is gazing at an optical depth that lies in a focusing distance range covered by adjusting the optical focus of the left camera according to the Mth optical depth;
• apply respective extended depth-of-field (EDOF) corrections to the Mth left image, based on respective optical depths at which one or more users other than the at least one user are gazing, to generate respective EDOF-corrected Mth left images;
• receive, from the imaging device, an Mth right image captured by adjusting the optical focus of the right camera according to another optical depth from amongst the N optical depths, wherein each of N consecutive right images in said cycle corresponds to a different optical depth from amongst the N optical depths;
• select the Mth right image for at least one other user who is gazing at an optical depth that lies in another focusing distance range covered by adjusting the optical focus of the right camera according to the another optical depth;
• apply respective EDOF corrections to the Mth right image, based on respective optical depths at which one or more users other than the at least one other user are gazing, to generate respective EDOF-corrected Mth right images;
• and
• send the Mth left image to a client device of the at least one user, the EDOF-corrected Mth left images to respective ones of client devices of the one or more users other than the at least one user, the Mth right image to a client device of the at least one other user, and the EDOF-corrected Mth right images to respective ones of client devices of the one or more users other than the at least one other user.