Abstract

An innovative optical morphological processor with dynamic reconfigurability is introduced. This processor is able to perform basic morphological operations such as the erosion or dilation in a single pass. With the use of a binary-optic diffraction grating, the structuring element (or kernel) required for these two operations can be obtained with a reconfigurable size, depending on the processing needs. A custom built 2-D output photodetector array is utilized to perform thresholding detection and to provide a feedback path to the input spatial light modulator. Image clean-up operations, including noise and clutter removal, can be obtained through iterative combination of multiple dilation and erosion operations with high speed and full programmability. Detailed system analyses as well as experimental demonstrations of various pattern recognition applications will be presented.

© 1992 Optical Society of America