Light field

A light field is a vector function that describes the amount of light flowing in every direction through every point in a space. The space of all possible light rays is given by the five-dimensional plenoptic function, and the magnitude of each ray is given by its radiance. Michael Faraday was the first to propose that light should be interpreted as a field, much like the magnetic fields on which he had been working. The term light field was coined by Andrey Gershun in a classic 1936 paper on the radiometric properties of light in three-dimensional space.

Modern approaches to light-field display explore co-designs of optical elements and compressive computation to achieve higher resolutions, increased contrast, wider fields of view, and other benefits.

The term "radiance field" may also be used to refer to similar concepts. The term is used in modern research such as neural radiance fields.