Signal-to-noise ratio in correlation plenoptic imaging

We review the signal-to-noise properties of two setups for Correlation Plenoptic Imaging (CPI), a novel technique that exploits the correlations of light intensity to perform the typical tasks of plenoptic imaging: refocusing out-of- focus parts of the scene, extending the depth of field, reconstruct 3D objects, As opposed to first-order plenoptic imaging, based on direct intensity measurement, CPI does not entail a loss of spatial resolution. Both setups are based on the properties of chaotic light and employ the concept of ghost imaging in different ways: the first one to image the object, the second one to image the focusing element. We show that the SNR can be easier to control in the second CPI scheme, in which the object is focused by a lens.