Disclosed is a temperature distribution measuring device for measuring the temperature distribution or the heat generation distribution in a sample. An embodiment collects a reflection signal the reflectivity of which changes on the basis of a bias signal applied to a sample, detects a signal of interest, which has been reflected from a region of interest in the sample, from the reflected signal, converts the signal of interest to a frequency range signal, calculates the relative amount of change in reflectivity of the sample by using a direct current component extracted on the basis of filtering of the frequency range signal and a frequency component of the bias signal, and acquires a thermal image of the sample on the basis of the relative amount of change in reflectivity.

This disclosure relates to methods and apparatuses for determining a material type and/or a surface condition of a workpiece. A surface of the workpiece is illuminated with illuminating radiation. At least one image of the illuminated surface is recorded. The material type and/or the surface condition of the workpiece is determined on the basis of a statistical analysis of the at least one image converted into a spatial frequency domain.

Systems and methods are provided for enhancing object feature visibility for overhead imaging. In one embodiment, a computing system can obtain information associated with one or more locations of an imaging platform and one or more locations of a solar source. The system can determine one or more positional ranges of the imaging platform relative to the solar source based, at least in part, on such information. The positional ranges can be indicative of positions at which the imaging platform is to obtain image frames depicting at least a portion of a target object. The system can send, to the imaging platform, a set of data indicative of the positional ranges and can receive, from the imaging platform, a set of data indicative of the image frames depicting at least a portion of the target object. The image frames being captured based, at least in part, on the positional ranges.

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for the production and labeling of objects in a manner suitable for the prevention and detection of counterfeiting. Thus, the system incorporates a variety of features that make unauthorized reproduction difficult. In addition, the present invention provides a system and method for providing a dynamically reconfigurable watermark, and the use of the watermark to encode a stochastically variable property of the carrier medium for self-authentication purposes.

The invention is an optical fingerprint sensor with prism module, including a shell; an optical prism arranged in the shell, the optical prism comprising a collection surface, a basal plane, a mirror surface and an output surface, there being a first included angle provided between the mirror surface and the collection surface, a second included angle provided between the mirror surface and the basal plane, a third included angle provided between the output surface and the collection surface, and a fourth included angle provided between the output surface and the basal plane; and an image sensing unit combined with the shell, comprising multiple luminous elements arranged beneath the basal plane of the optical prism correspondingly, and an image receiver and a lens arranged corresponding to the output surface. Thereby, an user is allowed to place fingerprint onto the collection surface for a light source of the luminous elements to be input from the basal plane and irradiated onto the fingerprint, and a light ray undergoes a first reflection and a second reflection with the basal plane and the mirror surface, respectively. After that, the output surface acts as a background surface and a light ray output as the light ray undergoes the second reflection for the image receiver to receive the light ray and form a fingerprint image, such that the advantages of maintaining an optical path effectively and reducing the volume of the optical fingerprint sensor are accomplished.

An optical system for capturing an image using compressive sensing includes: a digital micromirror device (DMD) array; an optical lens system; a first optical detector array; a first optical channel for projecting spatial information onto the first detector array; a second optical detector array; a second optical channel; a spectral filter and a polarization filter for projecting spectral and polarization information onto the second detector array; and an image processor to control the DMD array to generate a first and a second set of samples of the image using a sampling rate lower than required by the Shannon-Nyquist sampling theorem, and to reconstruct the image from the samples collected and digitized by the first and second optical detector arrays.

A handheld scanner incorporates vision software to allow the handheld scanner to be trained for OCR. The handheld scanner can include a user interface to allow a user to associate an image of a mark with electronic data for the mark. The user interface, along with a range finder, can also be used to influence variables that affect the quality of an image scan, thereby improving the quality of results for the image scan and/or decode process. The handheld scanner can also use a font description file during the decode process. The font description file can be generated using a synthetic image file of a character. The synthetic image file can be created by interpreting a marker font file.

At least first and second digital images of the sample are acquired having different focal heights relative to a platform on which the cells are disposed. A contrast matrix is produced having elements computed in dependence upon the difference between the values of the corresponding pixels in the first and second images. A phase matrix is produced by convolution of the contrast matrix with a predetermined distance matrix. The phase matrix is used to assess characteristics of the sample, such as the presence of cells in the sample or the heights of cells in the sample.

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for the production and labeling of objects in a manner suitable for the prevention and detection of counterfeiting. Thus, the system incorporates a variety of features that make unauthorized reproduction difficult. In addition, the present invention provides an efficient means for the production of labels and verification of authenticity, whereby a recording apparatus which includes a recording medium, having anisotrophic optical domains, along with a means for transferring a portion of the recording medium to a carrier, wherein a bulk portion of the recording medium has macroscopically detectable anisotrophic optical properties and the detecting apparatus thereon.

An optical detector (110) is disclosed, the optical detector (110) comprising: at least one spatial light modulator (114) being adapted to modify at least one property of a light beam (136) in a spatially resolved fashion, having a matrix (132) of pixels (134), each pixel (134) being controllable to individually modify the at least one optical property of a portion of the light beam (136) passing the pixel (134); at least one optical sensor (116) adapted to detect the light beam (136) after passing the matrix (132) of pixels (134) of the spatial light modulator (114) and to generate at least one sensor signal; at least one modulator device (118) adapted for periodically controlling at least two of the pixels (134) with different modulation frequencies; and at least one evaluation device (120) adapted for performing a frequency analysis in order to determine signal components of the sensor signal for the modulation frequencies.