Digital holography has been used in a number of applications, including encryption and 3-D object recognition. In addition, the polarization information made available by digital holography provides important clues about the surface or the interior of an object--for example, whether it has defects or is nonuniform. However, this technology is still in development. Now, Takanori Nomura at Wakayam University (Wakayama, Japan) has advanced the field by simultaneously obtaining both polarimetric data and the shape of a 3-D object from the same digital hologram.
In essence, he achieved polarimetric imaging of a 3-D object using two kinds of digital holograms obtained by orthogonal polarized reference waves. He also achieved pattern recognition by combining the shape and the polarization information of the object obtained from the separate holograms.
The researcher says the combination of data provided by this technique enables higher discriminant pattern recognition than with conventional sensing. Next, he intends to apply this approach to recognizing and discriminating biomedical samples.
The full paper is available on the SPIE website.
Posted by Conard Holton
Vision Systems Design