Abstract

The architectural development of optical processors can be represented in the form of a tree. The roots are the works of Abbe and Zernike, who recognized and demonstrated that a structure placed in the focal plane of an optical imaging system can modify the spatial spectrum of a coherently illuminated object. The lower trunk of the tree is the work of Marechai, Tsujiuchi, O’Neill, and others, who were the first to attempt to apply coherent optics to optical data processing problems, including image deblurring and extraction of 2-D signals from noise.

© 1982 Optical Society of America