Re: Can CCD camera output more than just intensity information of image?

walala wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am curious about how CCD works to pick up images... more specifically, I
> wonder CCD camera can output more than just pixel intensity information of
> an image? For example, I want to know the "variation" property of a block of
> an image, for example, a 8x8 block... roughly classified into "smooth" block
> and "non-smooth" block, two classes...
>
> I want to know if CCD can judge this very roughly and output some currents
> to indicate this? Anagolous to human eyes, human eyes can tell which part of
> the image is "highly non-smooth" at one glance... can CCD do that?
>
> Thanks a lot,
>
> -Walalla

"Retina" means "little net". A retina is more than a collection of
sensors. It also has connections between sensors that compare outputs
and derives information about differences and commonalties among them.
Most of the information passed up the optic nerve is of this derivative
type.

CCDs have no such interconnections. They do no intermediate processing
at all. Given the present state of our knowledge, we can't make very
good use of the higher-level processing that the eye does. I expect that
the depth of our knowledge and the complexity of imaging arrays will
advance together, but there's a long way to go.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯