Three-dimensional resolvability in an integral imaging system.

The concept of three-dimensional (3D) resolvability of an integral imaging system is thoroughly investigated in this research. The general concept of 3D resolution fails to describe the 3D discrimination completely. Then the concepts of the depth-resolution plane and lateral-resolution plane are introduced to show the difference between the conventional 3D spatial resolution and the newly introduced 3D resolvability. Therefore, the different properties of these planes for differentiating lateral spatial variations and axial variations are analyzed in this paper. The theoretical statements are demonstrated experimentally.