摘要 |
A combinatorial optical processor and method for the architecture of optical systems utilizes one or more optics modules (2240),_each module including a number of individually addressable optical elements (2450). The optical elements arranged and addressed in a combinatorial-arithmetic fashion such that a st of optical filter functions are defined and can be performed by the optical modules. The number of optical filter functions may be an exponential function of the number of addressable optical elements. Additionally, each of the optical filter functions may be addressed at random and a plurality of such functions may be addressed simultaneously. Apparatus (3010), such as imaging systems, may employ the combinatorial optical processor in order to include without limitation the features of being solid-state, projection of images inte free space and random addressability of the filter functions. |