tb_lf_depth_from_focus — 2D typed op

Data kinds: lightfieldimage

Call: fullseye.apply(img, "tb_lf_depth_from_focus", a=0.5, b=0.5) (the 2-D model is one image plus two scalar knobs a,b∈[0,1])

tb_lf_depth_from_focus: input → output

*The figure is the actual output on a synthetic 128×128 input. Left: input, right: output. Point clouds are drawn as a top-down scatter (brightness = z), 1-D series as a line plot, volumes as the maximum-intensity projection along z, videos as the middle frame, complex images as magnitude; return values that are not pictures are shown as the values themselves.*

*The output is shown in a viridis-like pseudo-colour (dark purple = low, yellow = high) so that a field of quantities — distance, phase, orientation, depth — can be read.*

*Knob a does not change the output (measured: identical at 0.1 / 0.5 / 0.9).*

*Knob b does not change the output (measured: identical at 0.1 / 0.5 / 0.9).*

Stages (the ops that come before → this op, left to right):

tb_lf_depth_from_focus: stages (docs site)

On other images (synthetic scene / photo / coins. Top row: inputs, bottom row: their outputs. Knobs at default):

tb_lf_depth_from_focus: other inputs (docs site)

Usage

Per-pixel slope from the sharpness peak across the refocus sweep.

Refocus at every slope in *slopes*, measure local sharpness (*measure*:

`laplacian` = summed modified Laplacian, the classical depth-from-focus

operator; `variance = local variance; gradient` = local gradient

energy) in a `window x window` neighbourhood, and take the slope at which

each pixel is sharpest. With `subpixel=True` (default) the peak is refined

by fitting a parabola through the winning sample and its two neighbours on a

uniformly spaced sweep — on a non-uniform sweep the refinement is

skipped rather than applied with the wrong spacing.

Unbiased where :func:lf_epi_slope is not: measured 2026-09-01 on a

5x5x64x64 synthetic field over a 121-point sweep from -3 to +3, the argmax

landed exactly on the true slope in 18 of 18 combinations (true slopes

0.0, +0.5, +1.0, +1.5, +2.0, -1.0 crossed with texture sigma 1.5 / 3.0 /

5.0 px), and the sub-pixel refinement left every one of them unmoved. Its

resolution, though, is whatever you put in *slopes* — it cannot see a plane

you never refocused on.

Returns `(slope_map, sharpness): the (H, W)` map of estimated slopes

(in px per angular step) and the `(H, W)` peak focus-measure value, which

is the honest confidence — a textureless pixel has no sharpness peak, gets

an essentially arbitrary slope, and its `sharpness` is ~0. Threshold on it

rather than trusting the map everywhere.

Raises `ValueError`: *lf* not a valid light field, *slopes* empty /

over :data:MAX_STACK_SLICES / over :data:MAX_STACK_ELEMENTS / containing

a non-finite or over-large value, an even or non-positive *window*, unknown

*measure* / *interp* / *edge*.

Typed bridge of the lightfield op `lf_depth_from_focus into the 2-D evolution registry: the same implementation, called under the op(v, a, b) convention. This op has no tunable parameter; a and b` are unused.

References (sample data, literature)

• Sample-data catalog (download URLs / licences) — 2-D uses skimage.data (BSD/public domain) plus synthetic images; 3-D lists download URLs for real data sources (Stanford, PDS, …).

• Operator provenance and references — the sources of the research/methods this op family came from.

Try it in Studio

The program below has been verified to run (same input as the figure). In Studio's help this block becomes buttons that load and run it on the spot.

img_to_lightfield 0.50 0.50
tb_lf_depth_from_focus 0.50 0.50

▸ Load this pipeline  ·  Load & run

Runnable examples (verified samples that actually call this op)

The examples below call the underlying ledger op lf_depth_from_focus. This bridge op is the same implementation adapted to the fn(v, a, b) convention, so the behaviour carries over unchanged (only the call form differs).

lightfield_depthpy -3.11 examples/lightfield_depth.py

poc_compound_eyepy -3.11 examples/poc_compound_eye.py

poc_lightfield_depthpy -3.11 examples/poc_lightfield_depth.py

Ops the type connects to (they accept image as input)

identity · gaussian · mean_box · bilateral · unsharp · median · min_filter · max_filter

Same category (typed)

tb_points_to_voxel · tb_estimate_point_normals · tb_iss_keypoints · tb_project_points · tb_render_point_depth · tb_statistical_outlier_removal · tb_radius_outlier_removal · tb_voxel_grid_downsample


*Provenance: ops.py — 2D operator registry. This per-op note is generated by tools/opdocs.py md (do not hand-edit).*

© 2026 Kazufumi Furuse — Fullseye operator documentation. Licensed under Apache-2.0.