Very different applications -- Lytro does use a lens array, but behind a traditional lens; the lens array is a microlens array covering the pixels on the sensor

Very different applications -- Lytro does use a lens array, but behind a traditional lens; the lens array is a microlens array covering the pixels on the sensor. This allows the recovery of the plenoptic function (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_field) from within the camera, which allows things like refocusing. A large-scale array, with no front objective lens, like the one shown here -- that allows recovery of the plenoptic function outside of any lens environment, which means you can do different fancy stuff. Synthetic aperture is one (not that interesting); holographic reconstruction is one much more interesting possibility, though. With holographic reconstruction, you could serve any possible perspective behind the array to a VR headset, say, or even create a 'hologram' of the scene incident on the array. Seriously, it's pretty cool. I wrote at length about it here: http://uploadvr.com/light-fields-are-dead-long-live-holography/ http://uploadvr.com/light-fields-are-dead-long-live-holograp... Awesome. And yes, the professor responsible for that group was the thesis advisor to Ren Ng (Lytro founder), and now works at Google. His name is Marc Levoy, and he's done amazing stuff.