Comments on: I See You See Me http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2006/04/30/i-see-you-see-me/ Roger Bourland writes about music and life Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:31:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Brad Wood http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2006/04/30/i-see-you-see-me/#comment-374 Brad Wood Thu, 04 May 2006 01:14:24 +0000 http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2006/04/30/i-see-you-see-me/#comment-374 Sounds as if they are a loooong way from anything realizable---but having been granted the patent, the clock is ticking to use it to advantage. BTW that's not the full patent---you have to pay to see more that the abstract, claims, and description. Although the claims are broad, and the level of interspersal of the sensor elements not limited to a one-to-one correspondence with the display pixels, keep in mind that an LCD-pixel-sized "image" sensor is not itself sensing an image---the wavelength of light and the associated minimum dimensions of the sensing cell preclude that---but rather is producing a signal based on what net amount of light impinges on it for a given interval. In this sense the ensemble of such sensors can produce an associated ensemble of signals, which if then appropriately processed could reproduce an image. Such single-signal-sensor arrays resemble a fly's eye, and the wonderful ancient sci-fi-horror movie (and I presume the remake that I didn't see) notwithstanding, the fly at best does not see an array or mosaic of little images, instead just a not-very-good resolution image at best. The practical problems of such integration of sensors and existing LCD or other display technologies are formidable. What might be a little more practical: a mapping of optical fibers into the display interstices, so that the image sensing could be done at a remove from the noisy immediate environment of the screen. Ooops! There's another patent. Sounds as if they are a loooong way from anything realizable—but having been granted the patent, the clock is ticking to use it to advantage. BTW that’s not the full patent—you have to pay to see more that the abstract, claims, and description.

Although the claims are broad, and the level of interspersal of the sensor elements not limited to a one-to-one correspondence with the display pixels, keep in mind that an LCD-pixel-sized “image” sensor is not itself sensing an image—the wavelength of light and the associated minimum dimensions of the sensing cell preclude that—but rather is producing a signal based on what net amount of light impinges on it for a given interval. In this sense the ensemble of such sensors can produce an associated ensemble of signals, which if then appropriately processed could reproduce an image. Such single-signal-sensor arrays resemble a fly’s eye, and the wonderful ancient sci-fi-horror movie (and I presume the remake that I didn’t see) notwithstanding, the fly at best does not see an array or mosaic of little images, instead just a not-very-good resolution image at best.

The practical problems of such integration of sensors and existing LCD or other display technologies are formidable. What might be a little more practical: a mapping of optical fibers into the display interstices, so that the image sensing could be done at a remove from the noisy immediate environment of the screen. Ooops! There’s another patent.

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