There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

We present a universal statistical model for texture images in the context of an overcomplete complex wavelet transform. The model is parameterized by a set of statistics computed on pairs of coefficients corresponding to basis functions at adjacent spatial locations, orientations, and scales. We develop an efficient algorithm for synthesizing random images subject to these constraints, by iteratively projecting onto the set of images satisfying each constraint, and we use this to test the perceptual validity of the model. In particular, we demonstrate the necessity of subgroups of the parameter set by showing examples of texture synthesis that fail when those parameters are removed from the set. We also demonstrate the power of our model by successfully synthesizing examples drawn from a diverse collection of artificial and natural textures.

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A Parametric Texture Model Based on Joint Statistics of Complex Wavelet Coefficients

There have been three basic approaches to optical tomography since the early 1980s: diffraction tomography, diffuse optical tomography and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Optical techniques are of particular importance in the medical field, because these techniques promise to be safe and cheap and, in addition, offer a therapeutic potential. Advances in OCT technology have made it possible to apply OCT in a wide variety of applications but medical applications are still dominating. Specific advantages of OCT are its high depth and transversal resolution, the fact, that its depth resolution is decoupled from transverse resolution, high probing depth in scattering media, contact-free and non-invasive operation, and the possibility to create various function dependent image contrasting methods. This report presents the principles of OCT and the state of important OCT applications. OCT synthesises cross-sectional images from a series of laterally adjacent depth-scans. At present OCT is used in three different fields of optical imaging, in macroscopic imaging of structures which can be seen by the naked eye or using weak magnifications, in microscopic imaging using magnifications up to the classical limit of microscopic resolution and in endoscopic imaging, using low and medium magnification. First, OCT techniques, like the reflectometry technique and the dual beam technique were based on time-domain low coherence interferometry depth-scans. Later, Fourier-domain techniques have been developed and led to new imaging schemes. Recently developed parallel OCT schemes eliminate the need for lateral scanning and, therefore, dramatically increase the imaging rate. These schemes use CCD cameras and CMOS detector arrays as photodetectors. Video-rate three-dimensional OCT pictures have been obtained. Modifying interference microscopy techniques has led to high-resolution optical coherence microscopy that achieved sub-micrometre resolution. This report is concluded with a short presentation of important OCT applications. Ophthalmology is, due to the transparent ocular structures, still the main field of OCT application. The first commercial instrument too has been introduced for ophthalmic diagnostics (Carl Zeiss Meditec AG). Advances in using near-infrared light, however, opened the path for OCT imaging in strongly scattering tissues. Today, optical in vivo biopsy is one of the most challenging fields of OCT application. High resolution, high penetration depth, and its potential for functional imaging attribute to OCT an optical biopsy quality, which can be used to assess tissue and cell function and morphology in situ. OCT can already clarify the relevant architectural tissue morphology. For many diseases, however, including cancer in its early stages, higher resolution is necessary. New broad-bandwidth light sources, like photonic crystal fibres and superfluorescent fibre sources, and new contrasting techniques, give access to new sample properties and unmatched sensitivity and resolution.

/pdf/optical-coherence-tomography-principles-and-applications-17y32cabbm.pdf

Optical coherence tomography - principles and applications

Optical wireless communication (OWC) refers to transmission in unguided propagation media through the use of optical carriers, i.e., visible, infrared (IR), and ultraviolet (UV) bands. In this survey, we focus on outdoor terrestrial OWC links which operate in near IR band. These are widely referred to as free space optical (FSO) communication in the literature. FSO systems are used for high rate communication between two fixed points over distances up to several kilometers. In comparison to radio-frequency (RF) counterparts, FSO links have a very high optical bandwidth available, allowing much higher data rates. They are appealing for a wide range of applications such as metropolitan area network (MAN) extension, local area network (LAN)-to-LAN connectivity, fiber back-up, backhaul for wireless cellular networks, disaster recovery, high definition TV and medical image/video transmission, wireless video surveillance/monitoring, and quantum key distribution among others. Despite the major advantages of FSO technology and variety of its application areas, its widespread use has been hampered by its rather disappointing link reliability particularly in long ranges due to atmospheric turbulence-induced fading and sensitivity to weather conditions. In the last five years or so, there has been a surge of interest in FSO research to address these major technical challenges. Several innovative physical layer concepts, originally introduced in the context of RF systems, such as multiple-input multiple-output communication, cooperative diversity, and adaptive transmission have been recently explored for the design of next generation FSO systems. In this paper, we present an up-to-date survey on FSO communication systems. The first part describes FSO channel models and transmitter/receiver structures. In the second part, we provide details on information theoretical limits of FSO channels and algorithmic-level system design research activities to approach these limits. Specific topics include advances in modulation, channel coding, spatial/cooperative diversity techniques, adaptive transmission, and hybrid RF/FSO systems.

/pdf/survey-on-free-space-optical-communication-a-communication-239v68hfyw.pdf

Survey on Free Space Optical Communication: A Communication Theory Perspective

In free-space optical communication links, atmospheric turbulence causes fluctuations in both the intensity and the phase of the received light signal, impairing link performance. We describe several communication techniques to mitigate turbulence-induced intensity fluctuations, i.e., signal fading. These techniques are applicable in the regime in which the receiver aperture is smaller than the correlation length of fading and the observation interval is shorter than the correlation time of fading. We assume that the receiver has no knowledge of the instantaneous fading state. When the receiver knows only the marginal statistics of the fading, a symbol-by-symbol ML detector can be used to improve detection performance. If the receiver has knowledge of the joint temporal statistics of the fading, maximum-likelihood sequence detection (MLSD) can be employed, yielding a further performance improvement, but at the cost of very high complexity. Spatial diversity reception with multiple receivers can also be used to overcome turbulence-induced fading. We describe the use of ML detection in spatial diversity reception to reduce the diversity gain penalty caused by correlation between the fading at different receivers.

/pdf/free-space-optical-communication-through-atmospheric-48mj86nu81.pdf

Free-space optical communication through atmospheric turbulence channels

Long range imaging is invariably limited in quality by the atmosphere which blurs, degrades contrast, and attenuates the image. The roles of atmospheric scatter, absorption, and turbulence are discussed and quantified. Properties of the imaging system in the extent of the atmospheric image degradation are also considered. Methods of mitigating such undesirable effects through image processing are also discussed.

Imaging Through the Atmosphere

There are two kinds of video image sequence distortions caused by vibration of the camera. The first is the vibration of the line-of-sight causing location changes of the scene in successive frames. The second effect is the blur of each frame of the sequence due to frame motion during its exposure. In this work, the relative effects of these two types of degradations on the ability of observers to recognize targets are investigated. This study is useful for evaluating the amount of effort required to compensate each effect. We found that the threshold contrast needed to recognize a target in a vibrating video sequence under certain conditions is more affected by the motion blur of each frame than the oscillation of the line-of-sight. For digital sequence restoration methods, this study determines the required precision of the deblurring and registration processes. It shows that the deblurring process should not be neglected as it often is.

Influence of severe vibrations on the visual perception of video sequences

Imaging systems have advanced significantly in the last decades in terms of low noise and better resolution. While
imaging hardware resolution can be limited by collection aperture size or by the camera modulation transfer function
(MTF), it is the atmosphere that usually limits image quality for long range imaging. The main atmospheric distortions
are caused by optical turbulence, absorption, and scattering by particulates in the atmosphere. The effects of the turbulent
medium over long/short exposures are image blur and wavefront tilts that cause spatio-temporal image shifts. This blur
limits the frequency of line pairs that can be resolved in the target's image and thus affects the ability to acquire targets.
The observer appears to be able to ignore large-scale distortions while small-scale distortions blur the image and degrade
resolution. Resolution degradations due to turbulence are included in current performance models by the use of an
atmospheric MTF. Turbulence distortion effects are characterized by both short and long exposure MTFs. In addition to
turbulence, scattering and absorption produced by molecules and aerosols in the atmosphere cause both attenuation and
additional image blur according to the atmospheric aerosol MTF. The absorption can have significant effect on target
acquisition in infrared (IR) imaging. In the present work, a brief overview and discussion of atmospheric effects on target
acquisition in the IR is given.

Atmospheric effects on target acquisition

Turbulence, atmospheric background, and aerosol forward scattering MTFs are presented and analyzed with regard to both low elevation rpv and high elevation reconnaissance applications. Turbulence is seen to limit image quality only at very high spatial frequencies where degradation effects are likely to take place anyway as a result of vibrational and diffraction effects. Background and aerosol MTFs limit low spatial frequency contrast as well. However, this can be overcome somewhat by proper selection of imaging wavelength. This analysis can aid in sensor selection for system design from the standpoints of both wavelength selection and sensor resolution.

Imaging Through The Atmosphere For Airborne Reconnaissance

One of the most apparent types of motion in real times systems is acceleration. In this paper the effects of this kind of motion are considered for two important areas, image quality and target acquisition. Comparison between effects of linear and acceleration motion is presented in the first section. The problem of acceleration motion is very critical for airborne photography in hostile territory. There are two opposing considerations when flying over hostile territory. On the one hand the pilot must fly fast so he will not revealed or attacked by the enemy. On the other hand he must fly slowly so the degradation process on the image quality will not be so severe. Mathematical tools developed recently permit quantitative analysis of effects of acceleration on image quality and acquisition of the target.© (1993) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Norman S. Kopeika

Papers

Imaging Through the Atmosphere

Influence of severe vibrations on the visual perception of video sequences

Atmospheric effects on target acquisition

Imaging Through The Atmosphere For Airborne Reconnaissance

Motion considerations for airborne reconnaissance of a target over hostile territory