Abstract

Optical hiding often requires the selection of specific artificial optical components as carriers, which results in poor versatility of the carriers and high costs for the hiding system. To conceal secret information on different surfaces such as metal, wood, and paper, we propose an optical information hiding method. In this method, we use images of surfaces, whose grayscale histograms have the characteristic of symmetric distribution. Based on this characteristic, we first scramble the surface image, and then adjust part of the gray value of the surface image to the complementary value to embed the secret information into a scrambled surface image to generate a key image. In the extraction process, a projector is used to reproduce the scrambled surface image and the key image, which are then incoherently superimposed to extract the secret information using the human visual system. The extraction process does not require complex optical knowledge and is simple and feasible. Simulation experiments and optical experiments indicate that this method is applicable in practice and possesses good security and imperceptibility. Furthermore, we prove the reliability of this method by embedding secret information in different surface images, demonstrating the potential application of more surface images in the field of optical information hiding. Finally, we discuss the applicability of surface information images and analyze the imperceptibility of key images.

© 2024 Optica Publishing Group

Multi-image optical information hiding algorithm based on Fourier transform without hidden key transmission

Yuan Guo, Ping Zhai, Xuewen Wang, and WenPeng Li
Appl. Opt. 63(5) 1292-1305 (2024)

Visual-cryptographic image hiding with holographic optical elements

Na Yang, Qiankun Gao, and Yishi Shi
Opt. Express 26(24) 31995-32006 (2018)

Efficient dielectric metasurface hologram for visual-cryptographic image hiding

Zhenfei Li, Guoyan Dong, Dongyu Yang, Guilin Li, Shiyi Shi, Ke Bi, and Ji Zhou
Opt. Express 27(14) 19212-19217 (2019)

Optical cryptosystem based on computational ghost imaging and nonlinear authentication

Lin Zhang, Xiaogang Wang, Qingming Zhou, Jidong Xue, and Bijun Xu
Opt. Express 32(3) 4242-4253 (2024)

Optical image hiding based on spectrum encoding with structured illumination

Tianhao Ruan, Dongyu Yang, and Yishi Shi
Appl. Opt. 60(11) 3071-3080 (2021)