Opto-Mechanical Filtering Applied for Orientation and Length Selective Contour Detection

Cognitive informatics is a very hot topic today, trying to provide solutions to problems in computation that are easily solved by the brain but are hard for a computer. The information processing properties of the brain are taken as the basis for such artificial systems. The first step of visual information processing, the extraction of orientation selective contours, is done in the primary visual cortex. A similar, orientation based filtering can be the first step in many vision systems of cognitive informatics. This paper presents a new approach to orientation selective contour detection. Oriented motion blur is used to filter for the desired orientations. The motion blur operation is performed before digitalization, using a vibrating mirror. The proposed technique not only provides a very high speed, high resolution contour detector, but also solves the problem of contour discontinuities.