Optical techniques for image compression

Optical computing has recently become a very active research field. The advantage of optics is its capability of providing highly parallel operations in a three dimensional space. The authors propose optical architectures to execute various image compression techniques. They optically implement the following compression techniques: transform coding; vector quantization; and interframe coding; They show many generally used transform coding methods, for example, the cosine transform, can be implemented by a simple optical system. The transform coding can be carried out in constant time. Most of this paper is concerned with a sophisticated optical system for vector quantization using holographic associative matching. Holographic associative matching provided by multiple exposure holograms can offer advantageous techniques for vector quantization based compression schemes. Photorefractive crystals, which provide high density recording in real time, are used as the holographic media. The reconstruction alphabet can be dynamically constructed through training or stored in the photorefractive crystal in advance. Encoding a new vector can be carried out by holographic associative matching in constant time. An extension to interframe coding is also discussed.<>