Computational Optical Imaging: Theories, Algorithms, and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Computational imaging is increasingly prevalent in autonomous systems and biomedical applications, enabled by advances in sensors and reconstruction algorithms. Raw sensor measurements are often difficult to interpret, creating ill-posed inverse problems and necessitating principled methods to recover meaningful, quantitative information. Augmenting the information content of measured data—through denoising and spatial and temporal resolution enhancement—is also critical. This Special Issue focuses on theories, algorithms, and systems that jointly incorporate sensing and computation to achieve robust imaging under challenging conditions, including sparse or compressed photon regimes, scattering media, long-range and non-line-of-sight scenarios, event-driven neuromorphic sensing, and low-emission constraints in biomedical imaging and spectroscopy. Emphasis is placed on statistical and optimization frameworks, physics-guided models, and data-driven machine learning approaches that improve accuracy, interpretability, and efficiency across diverse applications.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Foundational theory for computational imaging and inverse problems;
• Imaging sensors;
• Statistical and optimization methods for robust reconstruction and inference;
• Machine learning for optical imaging;
• Compressive and sparse imaging;
• Single-photon imaging;
• Neuromorphic/event-based sensing and algorithms
• Statistics and optimization algorithms in imaging;
• Computational biomedical imaging and spectroscopic reconstruction.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Zhenya Zang
Dr. Yiwei Chen
Dr. Dong Xiao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.