Applied Problems of Digital Optics

Abstract

This chapter discusses the most important problems of applied digital optics, including those of adaptation and of continuity and discreteness in processing pictures and other optical signals. It deals with methods for correction of linear and nonlinear distortions of signals in display and holographic systems and with noise suppression. The emphasis is on adaptive correction of distortions with unknown parameters and on a means of automatic estimation of these parameters through the observed distorted signal. How this adaptive approach may be extended to the detection of objects in pictures has been demonstrated. This is one of the fundamental problems in automated recognition. The chapter discusses the methods for the improvement of a picture's visual quality and to making preparations for facilitating visual picture interpretation. It also discusses the problems of digital holography and, by way of hologram synthesis for information display, illustrates another important and characteristic aspect of digital optics: the need to allow in digital processing for the analog nature of the processed signal—that is, the need to observe the principle of correspondence between analog signal transformation and its digital counterpart.