| Professional imaging systems, particularly motion picture cameras, usually employ larger photosites and lower pixel counts than many amateur cameras. This results in the desirable characteristics of improved dynamic range, signal to noise and sensitivity. However, high performance optics often have frequency response characteristics that exceed the Nyquist limit of the sensor, which, if not properly addressed, results in aliasing artifacts in the captured image.;Most contemporary still and video cameras employ various optically birefringent materials as optical low-pass filters (OLPF) in order to minimize aliasing artifacts in the image. Most OLPFs are designed as optical elements with a frequency response that does not change even if the frequency responses of the other elements of the capturing systems are altered. An extended evaluation of currently used birefringent-based OLPFs is provided.;In this work, the author proposed and demonstrated the use of a parallel optical window positioned between a lens and a sensor as an OLPF. Controlled X- and Y-axes rotations of the optical window during the image exposure results in a manipulation of the system's point-spread function (PSF). Consequently, changing the PSF affects some portions of the frequency components contained in the image formed on the sensor. The system frequency response is evaluated when various window functions are used to shape the lens' PSF, such as rectangle, triangle, Tukey, Gaussian, Blackman-Harris etc.;In addition to the ability to change the PSF, this work demonstrated that the PSF can be manipulated dynamically, which allowed us to modify the PSF to counteract any alteration of other optical elements of the capturing system. There are several instances presented in the dissertation in which it is desirable to change the characteristics of an OLPF in a controlled way. In these instances, an OLPF whose characteristics can be altered dynamically results in an improvement of the image quality. |
