Optical computing for image bandwidth compression: analysis and simulation.

Image bandwidth compression is dominated by digital methods for carrying out the required computations. This paper discusses the general problem of using optics to realize the computations in bandwidth compression. A common method of digital bandwidth compression, feedback differential pulse code modulation (DPCM), is reviewed, and the obstacles to making a direct optical analogy to feedback DPCM are discussed. Instead of a direct optical analogy to DPCM, an optical system which captures the essential features of DPCM without optical feedback is introduced. The essential features of this incoherent optical system are encoding of low-frequency information and generation of difference samples which can be coded with a small number of bits. A simulation of this optical system by means of digital image processing is presented, and performance data are also included.