Information aspects of optical images (abstract)a)

The possible applications of information theory methods to the optical system analysis and to the constructed image investigation are discussed. Visual images are not considered here but only the images in the form of two‐dimensional numerical arrays are under consideration. The extraction of information about the investigated object from the numerical arrays and suitable data processing procedures is also described. Algorithms and methods of optical image entropy calculations taking into consideration the features of the real measuring systems and the spectral and stochastic properties of signals and noises are proposed. The expressions for the optical channel capacity and the information capacity of the optical memory units are derived. The reconstruction accuracy is shown to be determined by the difference between image and noise entropies only. Thus the value of this difference can be used as a quantitative estimation of the real measuring system possibilities.