![]() Agile beam steering is reviewed and presented comprehensively as another unifying dimension. Germinating over the past three decades (reported by this author in 1974), it has attained serious R&D attention for broad application. In recognizing a scanning technology with an extensive background, which has been enhanced under government support for over a decade, this volume offers the first general publication on the advancing field known as agile beam steering. Another realization of this work is the periodic heuristic clarification of the fundamentals, with little dependence on the use of detailed mathematical affirmation-which may be accessed readily in the referenced literature. Included is attention to significant arcane techniques such as the Scophony system and several other enlightening acoustooptic scanning methods. Recurrent cross-referencing of related factors appears in different portions of this volume. Other aspects of commonality are the fundamental analogies between different disciplines, as in optical and electronic scanning theory, and in the sampling requirements for effective image, data, and acoustic reconstitution. The background and comparative disciplines are expanded in this work. Barry Johnson, with the objective of unification of the technology. This has been highlighted only recently in a publication by this author and R. Significant for us is that the scanning devices for each field-operating from very independent viewpoints-exhibit remarkably common factors. Its spatial and spectral composition is analyzed by scanning/detection devices to form organized patterns of pixels for subsequent reconstitution. Here, passive incoherent radiation from a remote source is collected optically at a distance. One important exception is the field of remote sensing. Similarly, with the introduction of the laser in the early 1960s, exhibiting its extremely disciplined propagation characteristics, active optical scanning is typically of the laser beam, identified compactly as laser scanning. Although the transfer of optical information that is outside that range of electromagnetic radiation is perfectly valid, as notably by CT (X-ray) scans, they are limited in the angular scan flexibility manifest in the dominant forms of optical scanning. Optical scanning may be conducted with many "shades" of "light," ranging spectrally from UV through the visible to IR and exhibiting incoherent to coherent order. An objective of this work is to render a unified orientation to these fundamental and often secluded related factors. Adept development requires, however, dedicated attention to the breadth of the disciplines that may be integrated into these typically diverse systems. As is surely recognized, many of the classic parallel systems have evolved to either hybrid serial/ parallel or fully serial utilizing various forms of spatial scanning to gain the operational advantages in data manipulation and transfer. It is because of this fundamental flexibility that optical scanning has engendered such a commanding role for information transfer. This temporal factor is of basic interest, for it allows (via the optical/electrical transducer-modulator and detector), efficient electronic processing. The serial form is dominated currently by familiar fields such as television, E-mail, and the reproduction of the graphic arts and sounds, utilizing an arranged timed series of pixels, pels, or voxels. The parallel form is represented classically by fields such as telescopy, microscopy, and photography-effectively rendering simultaneous transport of the information. The two principal forms of optical information transfer are identified as serial and parallel. This is a form of serial information transfer. What were the first optical scanning innovations? Semaphores? Or, how about, smoke signals? That is, amplitude modulation of scattered light from controlled groups of particulate aerosol, which disperse as they rise, as observed from a distance. Then, what is information? Consider that it means simply organized knowledge. Optical scanning is a systematic articulation of light to provide information transfer. What is Optical scanning? Let me offer a definition.
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