{"paper_id":"4c7da33e-51b3-4337-8bac-cabbb44cc4a9","body_text":"ABSTRACT\nArtificial vision systems hold transformative potential for biomedical imaging, diagnostics, and translational research by emulating and extending the capabilities of biological eyes. However, current techniques often face intrinsic trade-offs between spatial resolution, field of view, and depth perception, particularly in compact, biologically relevant settings. Here, we introduce FOLIC, a foveated light-field compound imaging system, which integrates compound-eye-inspired wide angular coverage and chambered-eye-inspired spatial acuity within a unified multi-aperture concave architecture. FOLIC naturally generates peripheral, blend, and foveated zones from a single capture, enabling seamless, depth-extended, multiscale visualization from wide-field context down to single-cell lateral resolution. We validate FOLIC across diverse fluorescent and non-fluorescent specimens, including cellular phantoms, tissue sections, and small organisms, demonstrating its versatility and scalability for biomedical research and related translational applications. We anticipate FOLIC to offer a biologically informed design blueprint for future artificial vision systems.\nTeaser A bioinspired system unifies compound and chambered eye principles to achieve wide-field volumetric microscopy.\nCompeting Interest Statement\nThe authors have declared no competing interest.","source_license":"CC-BY-4.0","license_restricted":false}