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

9317927自然界中的克罗宁光由于与大气和水下的散射粒子相互作用，以及从生物和非生物电介质表面反射，经常变得线偏振。在某些情况下，这些事件可以产生几乎完全偏振的光，并且自然界中广泛存在部分线偏振光。因为产生部分线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。动物利用自然光的偏振来实现各种功能，包括导航、定位、水面定位和增强视觉对比度。事实上，现在看来，绝大多数动物物种在检测和分析部分线偏振光方面具有视觉特长，对于这些物种中的许多物种，偏振视觉可能扮演着与我们这样的物种的颜色视觉类似的重要角色。然而，由于我们无法可视化或分析自然的偏振场，偏振视觉的研究一直受到限制。在这份提案中，我们描述了一种新的成像偏振仪的设计，它将能够完整地描述在扩展的视野中以单像素分辨率分布的偏振光(e矢量方向、偏振百分比和强度)。该仪器将完全便携，在陆地和水环境中都可以使用。它将快速获得偏振图像，并将数据在线呈现，使用假彩色显示器以人类观察者直观可解释的形式传达偏振信息。所有数据都将以数字形式存储，以便进行适当的数学分析，从而有可能转化为动物的视觉系统。我们相信，这样的仪器将打开进入其他物种感官世界的新窗口，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.