Towards Minimal Focal Stack in Shape from Focus

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Ashfaq, Khurram, Mahmood, Muhammad Tariq
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Ashfaq, Khurram
Mahmood, Muhammad Tariq
author_facet Ashfaq, Khurram
Mahmood, Muhammad Tariq
contents Shape from Focus (SFF) is a depth reconstruction technique that estimates scene structure from focus variations observed across a focal stack, that is, a sequence of images captured at different focus settings. A key limitation of SFF methods is their reliance on densely sampled, large focal stacks, which limits their practical applicability. In this study, we propose a focal stack augmentation that enables SFF methods to estimate depth using a reduced stack of just two images, without sacrificing precision. We introduce a simple yet effective physics-based focal stack augmentation that enriches the stack with two auxiliary cues: an all-in-focus (AiF) image estimated from two input images, and Energy-of-Difference (EOD) maps, computed as the energy of differences between the AiF and input images. Furthermore, we propose a deep network that computes a deep focus volume from the augmented focal stacks and iteratively refines depth using convolutional Gated Recurrent Units (ConvGRUs) at multiple scales. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed augmentation benefits existing state-of-the-art SFF models, enabling them to achieve comparable accuracy. The results also show that our approach maintains state-of-the-art performance with a minimal stack size.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_01603
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Minimal Focal Stack in Shape from Focus
Ashfaq, Khurram
Mahmood, Muhammad Tariq
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Shape from Focus (SFF) is a depth reconstruction technique that estimates scene structure from focus variations observed across a focal stack, that is, a sequence of images captured at different focus settings. A key limitation of SFF methods is their reliance on densely sampled, large focal stacks, which limits their practical applicability. In this study, we propose a focal stack augmentation that enables SFF methods to estimate depth using a reduced stack of just two images, without sacrificing precision. We introduce a simple yet effective physics-based focal stack augmentation that enriches the stack with two auxiliary cues: an all-in-focus (AiF) image estimated from two input images, and Energy-of-Difference (EOD) maps, computed as the energy of differences between the AiF and input images. Furthermore, we propose a deep network that computes a deep focus volume from the augmented focal stacks and iteratively refines depth using convolutional Gated Recurrent Units (ConvGRUs) at multiple scales. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed augmentation benefits existing state-of-the-art SFF models, enabling them to achieve comparable accuracy. The results also show that our approach maintains state-of-the-art performance with a minimal stack size.
title Towards Minimal Focal Stack in Shape from Focus
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.01603