Method for Selecting Images

• US 20100303308A1
• Filed: 08/15/2010
• Published: 12/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Philadelphia Retina Endowment Fund
• Original Assignee: Philadelphia Retina Endowment Fund
• Inventors: DellaVecchia, Michael A., Donoso, Larry
• Granted Patent: US 8,714,741 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/117
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/103 for determining refraction, e.g. refractometers, skiascopes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/12 for looking at the eye fundus, e.g. ophthalmoscopes A61B3/13 takes precedence

Abstract

A method for selecting an image is presented.

Claims

1. A method for obtaining a selected image of an object:

(a) applying electromagnetic energy to said object to provide reflected and/or transmitted energy according to interaction of said electromagnetic energy and said object;

(b) determining an image quality metric in accordance with said reflected and/or transmitted energy without the need for a wave front sensor or wave front aberration reconstruction to provide a determined image quality metric;

(c) applying a perturbation to said image quality metric to provide a perturbed image quality metric; and

(d) determining whether a predetermined image quality is obtained in accordance with said perturbed image quality metric to obtain a select image of said object.

2. The method for of claim 1, further comprising controlling a manufacturing process in accordance with said determined image quality metric.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(a) applying further electromagnetic energy to said object to provide further reflected and/or transmitted energy according to interaction of said object and said further electromagnetic energy;

(b) providing a further image in accordance with said further reflected and/or transmitted energy; and

(c) superimposing said determined image and said further image to provide a composite image.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising applying said determined image and said further image to a superposition screen to provide said composite image.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising optimizing at least one of said determined image and said further image to provide an optimized image.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein said object has a selected feature further comprising optimizing at least one of said determined image and said further image to emphasize a representation of said selected feature.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said electromagnetic energy is coherent light.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said object is an article of manufacture.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising identifying said article of manufacture in accordance with said image quality metric.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising controlling a manufacturing process in accordance with said identifying of said article of manufacture.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising optimizing a control signal according to said predetermined image quality metric.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising controlling an energy source in accordance with said control signal.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising applying a perturbation to said control signal in accordance with said perturbation applied to said image quality metric.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said perturbation comprises a random perturbation.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein said step (a) comprises a plurality of wavelengths.

16. A device comprising:

(a) an electromagnetic energy source; and

(b) a sensor for capturing reflected and/or transmitted energy from an object exposed to said energy source, wherein said reflected and/or transmitted energy is received through a;

(i) spatial energy modulator in communication with

(ii) a controller comprising a parallel stochastic perturbation gradient descent or a simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation optimization algorithm.

17. The device of claim 16, wherein said spatial energy modulator is a pixelized liquid crystal device, a micromechanical mirror array, a piston mirror, a tip-tilt mirror or a deformable mirror.

18. The device of claim 16, wherein said sensor is a CCD camera, a CMOS camera or a very large scale integration imaging device.

19. The device of claim 16, wherein said controller comprises a parallel controller.

20. The device of claim 16, further comprising an integral device for executing said algorithm computations.

21. The device of claim 16, wherein the energy source is a variable frequency source.