Proceedings Article | 11 January 2007
KEYWORDS: Cameras, Liquid crystal on silicon, Image processing, Image sensors, Modulation, LCDs, CMOS sensors, Imaging systems, Image fusion, Spatial light modulators
Image compounded technology is often used on film and its facture. In common, image compounded use image
processing arithmetic, get useful object, details, background or some other things from the images firstly, then
compounding all these information into one image. When using this method, the film system needs a powerful processor,
for the process function is very complex, we get the compounded image for a few time delay. In this paper, we introduce
a new method of image real-time compounded, use this method, we can do image composite at the same time with movie
shot. The whole system is made up of two camera-lens, spatial light modulator array and image sensor. In system, the
spatial light modulator could be liquid crystal display (LCD), liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS), thin film transistor liquid
crystal display (TFTLCD), Deformable Micro-mirror Device (DMD), and so on. Firstly, one camera-lens images the
object on the spatial light modulator's panel, we call this camera-lens as first image lens. Secondly, we output an image
to the panel of spatial light modulator. Then, the image of the object and image that output by spatial light modulator will
be spatial compounded on the panel of spatial light modulator. Thirdly, the other camera-lens images the compounded
image to the image sensor, and we call this camera-lens as second image lens. After these three steps, we will gain the
compound images by image sensor. For the spatial light modulator could output the image continuously, then the image
will be compounding continuously too, and the compounding procedure is completed in real-time. When using this
method to compounding image, if we will put real object into invented background, we can output the invented
background scene on the spatial light modulator, and the real object will be imaged by first image lens. Then, we get the
compounded images by image sensor in real time. The same way, if we will put real background to an invented object,
we can output the invented object on the spatial light modulator and the real background will be imaged by first image
lens. Then, we can also get the compounded images by image sensor real time. Commonly, most spatial light modulator
only can do modulate light intensity, so we can only do compounding BW images if use only one panel which without
color filter. If we will get colorful compounded image, we need use the system like three spatial light modulator panel
projection. In the paper, the system's optical system framework we will give out. In all experiment, the spatial light
modulator used liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS). At the end of the paper, some original pictures and compounded pictures
will be given on it. Although the system has a few shortcomings, we can conclude that, using this system to
compounding images has no delay to do mathematic compounding process, it is a really real time images compounding
system.
