Fourier Plane
August 16th, 2005 | No Comments »Please don’t allow the concept of the Fourier transform to intimidate you! The “Fourier plane” is simply the focal plane of a converging lens system such as the eye. This is the plane that most of us as children used with a magnifying glass to image the sun and burn holes in leaves, paper,etc. In the Fourier equation image information is encoded at this plane in two terms - light amplitude (related to intensity) and phase. Lying behind the Fourier plane is the “image plane” used by cameras and other imaging devices to form an image. These images are formed using only light amplitude and not phase information. The eye therefore possesses a superior ability to utilize phase detection in it’s image-forming process!
