Can a pixel uniquely determine at which angle the ray that hit it came from? Of course it only captures intensity, but every pixel "knows" its position on the image plane, and the focal length is also known. Could this angular information be potentially used for 3D reconstruction?
afang-story
Regarding the first question, ideally in the pinhole camera the pinhole is small enough so that each pixel maps to exactly one ray, so as you mentioned given the other information you can recover where the pixel comes from. Notice that if the pinhole is wider, multiple rays would map to a single pixel which would blur the image.
nathanpetreaca
To the above question. My guess is: In theory, yes; in practice, no. In the real world pinhole cameras are very blurry and noisy.
Can a pixel uniquely determine at which angle the ray that hit it came from? Of course it only captures intensity, but every pixel "knows" its position on the image plane, and the focal length is also known. Could this angular information be potentially used for 3D reconstruction?
Regarding the first question, ideally in the pinhole camera the pinhole is small enough so that each pixel maps to exactly one ray, so as you mentioned given the other information you can recover where the pixel comes from. Notice that if the pinhole is wider, multiple rays would map to a single pixel which would blur the image.
To the above question. My guess is: In theory, yes; in practice, no. In the real world pinhole cameras are very blurry and noisy.