Method and system for optimizing depth imaging

A system for optimizing depth imaging, the system comprising one or more processors in communication with a data storage, the one or more processors configurable to execute:

• an illumination module to direct illumination of one or more scenes with illumination patterns governed by an initial set of control vectors;
• a capture module to receive one or more captured images of each of the scenes while the scene is being illuminated with at least one of the illumination patterns;
• a reconstruction module to:
• reconstruct the scenes from the captured images with reconstruction parameters;
• estimate the reconstruction error and a gradient of the reconstruction error with respect to the control vectors and the reconstruction parameters;
• and
• iteratively perform until the reconstruction error reaches a predetermined error condition:
• determining a current set of control vectors and current set of reconstruction parameters by updating at least one of the set of control vectors and the set of reconstruction parameters to reduce the reconstruction error;
• illuminating the one or more scenes with the illumination patterns governed by the current set of control vectors;
• capturing one or more images of each of the scenes while the scene is being illuminated with at least one of the illumination patterns;
• reconstructing the scenes from the one or more captured images using the current reconstruction parameters;
• and
• estimating an updated reconstruction error and an updated gradient of the reconstruction error with respect to the current control vectors and the current reconstruction parameters;
• and
• an output interface to output at least one of the updated control vectors and the updated reconstruction parameters.

A computer-implemented method for generating a depth image of a scene, the method comprising:

• illuminating the scene with one or more illumination patterns, each pattern comprising a plurality of discretized elements, intensity of each element governed by a code vector;
• capturing one or more images of the scene while the scene is being illuminated;
• for each pixel, generating an observation vector comprising at least one intensity recorded at the pixel for each of the captured images;
• for each pixel, determining the code vector that best corresponds with the respective observation vector by maximizing the zero-mean normalized cross-correlation (ZNCC);
• for each pixel, determining a depth value from the best-corresponding code vector;
• and
• outputting the depth values as a depth image.