System and method for simulating light-in-flight

Abstract

Systems and methods related to simulated light-in-flight imaging are described. A computing device may execute a light-in-flight engine to process an optical image and a corresponding depth map to produce a light-in-flight image or video that simulates propagation of a wavefront across a scene. The light-in-flight engine may generate an optical simulation output by transforming a depth map to a three-dimensional lift domain to produce a three-dimensional data structure, then convolving the three-dimensional data structure with a convolutional operator, which may define a Gaussian sphere, to produce a filtered three-dimensional data structure. The light-in-flight engine then affine transforms the optical image with an identified slice of the filtered three-dimensional data structure to produce a light-in-flight image.