Is there any advantage to the semi-transparent mirror in the camera splitting this light into MORE than two paths? My guess is no, as all we're doing is checking for focus, and it seems like two paths are enough to determine the phase difference between the two paths. Three paths, for instance, seems much more complex to calculate each of the 3 different phase differences, with not much upside.
srikartalluri
@ShonenMind, Your answer makes sense but I do believe tracing more than 2 rays from the light source has signficiant benefits. Firstly, when expanded to the 3d real world space, it can allow for more sophisticated calculations, such as estimating the depth of real world objects. Also when doing calculations, having more than 2 rays can help with reducing the error related to rounding, precision, and division.
Is there any advantage to the semi-transparent mirror in the camera splitting this light into MORE than two paths? My guess is no, as all we're doing is checking for focus, and it seems like two paths are enough to determine the phase difference between the two paths. Three paths, for instance, seems much more complex to calculate each of the 3 different phase differences, with not much upside.
@ShonenMind, Your answer makes sense but I do believe tracing more than 2 rays from the light source has signficiant benefits. Firstly, when expanded to the 3d real world space, it can allow for more sophisticated calculations, such as estimating the depth of real world objects. Also when doing calculations, having more than 2 rays can help with reducing the error related to rounding, precision, and division.