Patent ID: 8542268

Claim:
A method for designing a passive multiview-imaging system based on a sensor array and a processor, the sensor array divided into partitions, each partition forming a sensor area for a corresponding imaging subsystem, each imaging subsystem capturing an image of an object, the processor estimating depth in the object based on the captured images, the design method comprising a computer system performing the steps of: automatically generating a plurality of different candidate partitions, each candidate partition defining a division of the sensor array into two or more sensor areas, wherein at least some of the candidate partitions divide the sensor array into three or more sensor areas; estimating a quality metric for each candidate partition, comprising: accessing an optical design for the corresponding imaging subsystems for the candidate partition; modeling the image capture by the imaging subsystems and the depth estimation by the processor, the modeling taking into account the input specifications; and estimating the quality metric based on the modeled depth estimation; and ordering the candidate partitions according to their estimated quality metrics.