Optical pseudocolor encoding of spatial frequency information

An optical spatial filtering system is described which color encodes the local spatial frequency content of an image. It is shown that partially coherent illumination has advantages over coherent or incoherent illumination in this system. Experimental results are shown which indicate that the system can be used to perform a simple type of texture-to-color conversion. The system could be used to enhance textural differences for a human observer or as a preprocessor which provides texture related information to a second image processing device.