an optical component disposable so to intersect and thus angularly distribute light from the object to form an image thereof at a physical image formation path distance from said optical component, wherein said angular distribution and said physical image formation path distance are designated, at least in part, by an optical property of image formation optics;

a space-compression medium disposed within said physical image formation path distance so to intersect said angularly distributed light such that an incident angular distribution thereof is maintained at output while effectively increasing a transverse displacement of a beam of said angularly distributed light relative to a corresponding transverse translation of said beam through a region external to said space-compression medium of an equal size to that of said optical space-compression medium thereby effectively reducing said physical image formation path distance to ultimately form the image at a physical device image location advanced from said physical image formation path distance; and

an image capture device disposed at said physical device image location.