Abstract

An optical novelty filter^1–3 detects changes in a scene. To illustrate the idea, imagine a still-life mountain scene as the input pattern. Initially the entire scene is "novel" and the output of the filter is the entire scene. Eventually, the scene is no longer so novel: It fades from the output as the system adapts. Now a bird enters the scenesomething that wasn't there before. The output of the filter shows only the flying bird. After the bird lands, the system adapts to the change in the scene, so once again there is no output.

© 1990 Optical Society of America