Optoelectronic means for one-dimensional integral transforms of two dimensional information

• US 4,016,413 A
• Filed: 12/04/1975
• Issued: 04/05/1977
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/1974
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Army (Government of the United States of America)
• Original Assignee: The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Army
• Inventors: Bramley, Jenny
• Primary Examiner(s): Gruber, Felix D.
• Application Number:
  US05/637,784
• Time in Patent Office: 488 Days
• Field of Search: 324/77 C, 324/77 CS, 324/77 K, 235/181, 315/11, 350/314, 358/44
• US Class Current: 382/280
• CPC Class Codes: G06E 3/001 Analogue devices in which mathematical operations are carried out with the aid of optical or electro-optical elements optical elements per se G02B; devices consisting of a plurality of solid state components, including light sensitive semiconductor components, formed in or on a common substrate H01L27/14; electro-, magneto- or acousto-optics, non-linear optics G02F1/00; graph reading G06K11/00

Abstract

The invention concerns an analog TV-type process and apparatus for rapid cessing of pictorial information. A transparency is rapidly scanned by a line of light source, scanning of which is controlled by conventional electronic means. The light output is applied to an image converter tube and the output thereof applied in line by line sequence to a transmissive plate. The plate has parallel strips with transmittivities determined by the operation to be performed, such as biased sines or cosines for a Fourier transform. A line of the picture on the transparency is projected successively on all the transmissive strips. The total amount of light output of each strip of the plate is applied to a photomultiplier tube. The coefficients of the Fourier transform are obtained from the difference between the photomultiplier output after illumination of a line of the transmissive plate and a stored signal which specifies the bias level.

Claims

1. A method for rapidly processing substantially parallely arranged pictorial information comprising:

a. illuminating line by line said pictorial information and applying the light intensity output from said illuminated line of information to optoelectronic means;

b. scanning the output of said optoelectronic means

across a transmissive plate having a first strip of uniform density and succeeding parallely arranged strips with adjacent elemental areas of relative variable density,

the transmittivity of said elemental areas of said strips corresponding to the kernel values of an integral transform;

c. applying the total amount of light output of each of said scanned parallely arranged strips of said transmissive plate sequentially to a photomultiplier tube and storing the output signal corresponding to the total amount of light output of said first strip; and

d. subtracting the photomultiplier tube output after illumination of a line of the transmissive plate from the stored signal of said first strip to determine the transform coefficients of said integral transform of the pictorial of said transparency.

2. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein said optoelectronic means is an image converter tube and said scanning of the output of said optoelectronic means is performed by a magnetic deflection coil energized by an electronic step signal of increasing voltage.

3. A method for rapidly processing pictorial information of a transparency comprising:

a. illuminating said transparency with a line of light source;

b. deflecting said line of light source for successive line scanning of pictorial information on said transparency and applying the light intensity output of each successive line of said scanned pictorial information to optoelectronic means having a light transmissive plate adjacent the output of said optoelectronic means, said transmissive plate with a first strip of uniform density and succeeding parallely arranged strips with adjacent elemental areas of relative variable transmittivity corresponding to kernel values of an integral transform;

c. projecting said deflected line of light source illuminating said transparency through a line of pictorial information on said transparency and successively scanning through said optoelectronic means all parallely arranged strips on said transmissive plate with each line of pictorial information;

d. applying the total amount of light output of each of said scanned lines on said transmissive plate to a photomultiplier tube and storing the output signal corresponding to the total amount of light output of said first strip;

e. subtracting the photomultiplier tube output after illumination of a line of said transmissive plate from the stored signal of said first strip for each line of said transparency to determine the transform coefficients of said integral transform of the pictorial information of said transparency; and

f. storing the signal.

4. A method as recited in claim 3 wherein said optoelectronic means is an image converter tube and said scanning of the output of said optoelectric means is performed by a magnetic deflection coil energized by an electronic step signal of increasing voltage.

5. Apparatus for rapidly processing pictorial information comprising:

a. a source of substantially parallely arranged pictorial information illuminated one line at a time;

b. optoelectronic means including electronic line by line scanning means receiving light intensity output from said source of substantially parallely arranged pictorial information;

c. a light transmissive plate in contiguous relation with the output face of said optoelectronic means, said plate having parallely arranged strips, a first strip having a density of the material of said plate and succeeding strips having adjacent elemental areas of relative variable transmittivities corresponding to kernel values of an integral transform;

d. photomultiplier means adjacent said light transmissive plate receiving the total light output of said transmissive plate upon line by line scanning of said information; and

e. said line by line electronic scanning means successively sweeping the information of said illuminated line received from said optoelectronic means over said parallely arranged strips with the total amount of light transmitted through each strip of said transmissive plate received by said photomultiplier means and the output thereof stored electronically whereby the transform coefficients of said integral transform are determined by the difference between the output of said photomultiplier means after illumination of a line of said transmissive plate and a stored bias signal.

6. Apparatus as recited in claim 5 wherein said optoelectronic means is an image converter tube and said line by line scanning means is a magnetic deflection coil energized by an electronic step signal of increasing voltage.

7. Apparatus for rapidly processing pictorial information comprising:

a. a transparency containing parallely aligned pictorial information;

b. a line of light source aligned with said transparency for illuminating individual lines thereof;

c. first and second electronic deflection means for successively scanning parallel lines of pictorial information;

d. optoelectronic means aligned with said scanning line of light source and said transparency, said transparency in contiguous relation with the input face of said optoelectronic means;

e. a light transmissive plate in contiguous relation with the output face of said optoelectronic means, said plate having parallely arranged strips parallel to line of light source, a first strip having a density of the material of said plate and succeeding strips having adjacent elemental areas of relative variable transmittivities corresponding to kernel values of an integral transform;

f. photomultiplier means adjacent said light transmissive plate receiving the total light output of strips of said transmissive plate upon line by line scanning of the pictorial information on said transparency; and

g. said first electronic deflection means connected to said line of light source for illuminating a line of pictorial information on said transparency, imparting the light passing through said line of pictorial information on said transparency to the input face of said optoelectronic means and said second electronic deflection means successively sweeping the output of said optoelectronic means over said parallely arranged strips with the total amount of light transmitted through each strip of said transmissive plate received by said photomultiplier means and the output thereof electronically stored whereby the transform coefficients of said integral transform are determined by the difference between the output of said photomultiplier means after illumination of a line of said transmissive plate and a stored bias signal.

8. Apparatus as recited in claim 7 wherein said optoelectronic means is an image converter tube and said second electronic deflection means is a magnetic deflection coil energized by an electronic step signal of increasing voltage.

9. A method for determining transform coefficients of an integral transform in rapid processing of a line of substantially parallely arranged, incoherently illuminated pictorial information comprising:

a. applying the intensity of illumination from the illuminated line of pictorial information to the input face of an optoelectronic means;

b. scanning the output of said optoelectronic means over a light transmissive plate continuous to the output face of said optoelectronic means, said transmissive plate having a first strip of uniform density and succeeding parallely arranged strips with adjacent elemental areas of relative variable transmittivity corresponding to kernel values of an integral transform;

c. applying the total amount of light output of each of said scanned lines on said transmissive plate to a photomultiplier tube; and

e. subtracting the photomultiplier tube output after illumination of a line of said transmissive plate from a stored bias signal obtained from the photomultiplier tube output after illumination of said first strip of uniform density.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein densities on said strips correspond selectively to kernel values of Fourier, Laplace, Mellin and other Hankel integral transforms.

11. A method as recited in claim 9 wherein said optoelectronic means is an image converter tube and said successive scanning on said transmissive plate is performed by a magnetic deflection coil energized by an electronic step signal of increasing voltage.

12. A method as recited in claim 9 wherein said pictorial information is displayed on a transparency.

13. An apparatus for processing a line of pictorial information into the coefficients of a transform representing the intensity of the line comprising:

a. a transmissive plate with parallely arranged strips having a first strip of uniform density and succeeding parallel strips with adjacent elemental areas of relative variable transmittivity corresponding to kernel values of the integral transform;

b. an image converter means with magnetic deflection means for imparting the line of pictorial information successively to each strip of said transmissive plate; and

c. photomultiplier means adjacent said light transmissive plate receiving the total light output of said strips of said transmissive plate whereby the transform coefficients of said integral transform are determined by the difference between the output of said photomultiplier means after illumination of a line of said transmissive plate and said first line of said transmissive plate.

14. A transmissive plate for use in a system for rapidly processing pictorial information utilizing transform coefficients of an integral transform, said transmissive plate comprising a plurality of horizontally disposed strips, a first one of said plurality of strips having a density of the material of said plate and succeeding parallely arranged strips having adjacent elemental areas of relative variable transmittivities corresponding to kernel values of an integral transform.