Apparatus for Quantifying Video Images of Light Beams

This invention relates to monitoring light beams, mainly from lasers, using video cameras and monitors. It enhances the displayed video image and makes it more meaningful. It overcomes the problems caused by subjective juegement of the beam parameters.

Many light beams are viewed with video equipment, in particular invisible light from infra-red laser diodes. It is often difficult to judge the shape and diameter of the light beam since the size of the displayed image changes with changing the light intensity. It is the purpose of this invention to display the beam shape and diameter independent of light level. A further advantage of this invention is that it replaces the blurred appearance of many beams with a crisp quantized version which is easier to use.

The present invention processes the video signal from a video camera looking at light beams. The invention replaces the continuous analog video signal with a signal quantized to five levels: The part of the signal which represents light intensities over 90% is replaced with a fixed 100% of full scale output. The part which represents intensities over 50% is replaced with a fixed 80% of full scale output. The part which represents over 37% (1/e) is replaced with a 60% of full scale output, over 14% (1/e) is replaced with a 40% of full scale output, over 10% is replaced with 20% of full scale output and under 10% is replaced with a zero output. These quantized contours are independent of the light level over a wide range of intensities. It is an object of this invention to display video images of light beams without their usual blurred appearance and display their major feature independent of intensity. A further object of the invention is to enable the measurement of the light beam diameter.

In the drawings which illustrate the embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the electronic circuit in the particular embodiment shown.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are illustrations of the appearance of the video display before and after the invention is used, respectively.

FIG. 1 illustrates in schematic form the preferred embodiment. The signal from a video camera enters via connector 1, is terminated by a matching resistor 2 and its peak value is being detected by diode 3 and capacitor 4. Resistor network 5,6,7,8,9,10 divides the peak value into five values corresponding to 10%, 14%, 37%, 50% and 90% of the peak value. These values are connected to the reference input of comparators 11,12,13,14,15. The input video signal is connected to the input terminal of the same comparators. All comparators are powered from power source 21. The outputs of the comparators are summed together into resistor 22 using output resistors 16,17,18,19,20.

The combination of resistor 22 and resistors 16,17,18,19,20 has an equivalent impedance of about 75 ohms. Resistor 2 is also 75 ohms in order to match the impedance of the video signals used. The time constant of capacitor 4 and the sum of resistors 5,6,7,8,9,10 is about two seconds.

In operation the video signal enters as a continuous analog signal corresponding to the video image shown in FIG. 2-a. After being quantized by the pre-set thresholds of 10%, 14%, 37%, 50%, and 90% the appearance of the video image after processing is shown in FIG. 2-b. This image form displays directly the relevant light beam contours. Since the comparator thresholds are proportional to the peak value of the video signal, the contours are largely independent of the actual light level.