High-Speed Image Compression via Optical Transformation

A proposed method of compressing image data would exploit the well-known capability of a converging lens to generate the Fourier transform of an image by purely optical means, in much less time than is needed to compute the discrete Fourier transform of a sampled image by use of digital electronic circuits. Inasmuch as a transform (whether of the Fourier, discrete-cosine, or other type) is the most computation-intensive part of almost any electronic image-compression scheme, the speedup afforded by the proposed method could make the difference between success or failure in applications in which there are requirements to compress image data at high throughput rates. In addition, because high-speed digital image-processing circuits are typically power-hungry, the use of optical Fourier transformation can reduce power consumption.