Inview Technology Corporation

Sujoy Chatterjee

Lenore McMackin

Kevin F Kelly

Robert F Bridge

Richard G Baraniuk

Tyler H Weston

Donna E Hewitt

Richard G Barnaiuk

Leonore McMackin

An imaging system and method that captures compressive sensing (CS) measurements of a received light stream, and also obtains samples of background light level (BGLL). The BGLL samples may be used to compensate the CS measurements for variations in the BGLL. The system includes: a light modulator to spatially modulate the received light stream with spatial patterns, and a lens to concentrate the modulated light stream onto a light detector. The samples of BGLL may be obtained in various ways: (a) injecting calibration patterns among the spatial patterns; (b) measuring complementary light reflected by digital micromirrors onto a secondary output path; (c) separating and measuring a portion of light from the optical input path; (d) low-pass filtering the CS measurements; and (e) employing a light power meter with its own separate input path. Also, the CS measurements may be high-pass filtered to attenuate background light variation.

Dedicated power meter to measure background light level in compressive imaging system

Mechanisms for increasing the rate of acquisition of compressed/encoded image representations are disclosed. An imaging system may deliver subsets of a modulated light stream onto respective light sensing devices. The light sensing devices may be sampled in parallel. Samples from each light sensing device may be used to construct a respective sub-image of a final image. The parallelism allows compressed images to be acquired at a higher rate. The number of light sensing devices and/or the number of pixels per image may be selected to achieve a target image acquisition rate. In another embodiment, spatial portions of the incident light stream are separated and delivered to separate light modulators. In yet another embodiment, the incident light stream is split into a plurality of beams, each of which retains the image present in the incident light stream and is delivered to a separate light modulator.

Decreasing image acquisition time for compressive imaging devices

Dual-port measurements of light reflected from micromirror array

A compressive imaging system including a light modulator, a light sensing device and a TIR prism. The TIR prism is configured to receive an incident light beam, to provide the incident light beam to the light modulator, to receive a modulated light beam MLB from the light modulator, and to direct the modulated light beam onto a sensing path. The light sensing device receives the modulated light beam (or at least a portion of the modulated light beam) and generates an electrical signal that represents intensity of the modulated light beam (or the 'at least a portion' of the modulated light beam). The TIR prism may reduce a distance required to separate the incident light beam from the modulated light beam.

TIR prism to separate incident light and modulated light in compressive imaging device

Determining light level variation in compressive imaging by injecting calibration patterns into pattern sequence

Low-pass filtering of compressive imaging measurements to infer light level variation

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Sujoy Chatterjee