An Imaging Polarimeter for the Study of Biological Principles of Polarized-Light Vision

9317927克罗宁光在自然界中经常变成线性偏振，这是由于它与大气和水下的散射粒子相互作用，以及它从生物和非生物介电表面的反射。在某些情况下，这些事件可以产生几乎完全偏振的光，部分线性偏振光广泛存在于自然界中。 因为产生部分线性偏振的光的相互作用是复杂的，所以任何视野中的实际偏振模式都是类似的复杂。 动物已经利用自然光的偏振来实现各种功能，包括导航、定向、水面定位和增强视觉对比度。事实上，现在看来，绝大多数动物物种都具有检测和分析部分线性偏振光的视觉专门功能，并且对于其中许多物种来说，偏振视觉很可能发挥着与色彩视觉类似的重要作用。像我们这样的物种。然而，偏振视觉的研究一直受到限制，我们无法可视化或分析自然领域的偏振。在这个建议中，我们描述了一个新的，成像偏振计，将能够提供完整的描述偏振光分布（e-矢量方向，偏振百分比和强度）在整个扩展的视野单像素分辨率的设计。该仪器将是完全便携式的，可用于陆地和水生环境。它将迅速获得偏振图像，并将在线呈现数据，使用假彩色显示器以人类观察者直观地可解释的形式传达偏振信息。所有数据将以数字形式存储，以便进行适当的数学分析，从而可能转换为动物的视觉系统。我们认为，这样一项文书将为以下方面打开新的窗口： 其他物种的感官世界，并将在生物学，感知和机器视觉的研究中有广泛的应用。

9317927 Cronin Light in nature frequently becomes linearly polarized due to its interactions with scattering particles in the atmosphere and under water, and to its reflection from biological and nonliving dielectric surfaces. Under some circumstances, these events can produce light that is almost completely polarized, and partially linearly polarized light is widely present in nature. Because the interactions of light that produce partial linear polarization are complex, the actual pattern of polarization in any visual field is similarly complicated. Animals have exploited the polarization of natural light for a variety of functions, including navigation, orientation, location of water surfaces, and enhancement of visual contrast. In fact, it now seems that the great majority of animal species have visual specializations for the detection and analysis of partially linearly polarized light, and it is probable that for many of these species polarization vision plays a similarly significant role as color vision plays for species like ourselves. However, the study of polarization vision has been limited by our inability to visualize or analyze natural fields of polarization. In this proposal, we describe a design for a new, imaging polarimeter that will be capable of providing complete descriptions of the distribution of polarized light (e-vector orientation, percent polarization, and intensity) at single-pixel resolution throughout an extended visual field. The instrument will be completely portable, and usable both in terrestrial and aquatic environments. It will obtain polarization images rapidly and will present the data on line, using false-color displays to convey the polarization information in a form intuitively interpretable by a human observer. All data will be stored in numerical form for appropriate mathematical analysis, making possible transformations into the visual systems of animals. We believe that such an instrument will open new windows into the sensory worlds of other species, and will have broad application for studies of biology, perception, and machine vision.