Hybrid Optical/Digital Texture Analysis

Abstract

A hybrid optical/digital system is described for analyzing images based on textural information. A partially coherent white light optical processor is used to obtain the texture related information which is then processed digitally. Specifically the optical system generates a pseudocolor encoded image where the image color is a function of the local spatial frequency content of the image. Cluster analysis is the used to identify different color/texture regions. Experimental results are shown where the system has been applied to the problem of identifying distinct cloud types from satellite photographs.