Mechano-optical lens array to simulate insect vision photographically

Abstract

An array of parallel mounted tubes was used to illustrate how an upright image is produced by the optical principle of ray selectors. The modulation of image contrast was empirically determined and compared with a conventional photographic lens to show how the principle of ray selectors is comparatively poor for resolving high spatial frequency information. The ray selectors resolved images of spatial frequencies less than about 0.4 cycles/degree, which approximately matches the visual acuity for behavioural experiments with honeybees. Images produced by the ray selectors are discussed in relation to the neural wiring of the apposition eyes in honeybees and, by applying image filtering to remove high spatial frequencies, a representation of how insects might view a vase of flowers as a coherent upright image is presented. This is the first photographic application of this biologically important optical principle. The resulting images show a realistic representation of how the optics of insect eyes is likely to resolve images.

Keywords:

• FLOWERS
• RAY SELECTOR CAMERA
• IMAGE FILTERING
• SPATIAL FREQUENCY
• OMMATIDIUM