Aspect ratio and scan converter system
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
InventorPaul S. Catano
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An aspect ratio and scan converter system adapts signal information derived rom optical scanning of a rectangular field of view having an aspect ratio of the order of 60 to 1. The signal information is converted to digital form and serially stored in a bulk storage memory which may be addressed for reading out selected sequences of the serially stored digital signals. The selected sequences are stored in a random access memory having a two dimensional format and then read out by repetitive scan in a direction orthogonally related to the direction in which the sequences were stored. The digital signals thus read out are converted to analog form and applied to a suitable display means such as a TV type monitor CRT, providing a visual display of the selected portion of the elongate field of view.
Claims9
An aspect ratio and scan converter system for use with signal information developed from optical scanning of a rectangular field of view at a high scan speed along the minor axis relative to low scan speed along the major axis of the field of view comprising:
- an analog-to-digital converter connected to receive said signal information for developing commensurate digital signals;
- a bulk storage memory for serially storing the sequences of digital signals developed from high speed optical scanning along said minor axis and representing said entire rectangular field of view;
- means for addressing said bulk storage memory for reading out selected sequences of digital signals serially stored therein representing a selected portion of said field of view;
- a random access memory for receiving and storing each of said selected sequences of digital signals in a first direction of a two-dimensional format;
- means for addressing said random access memory to read out the stored selected sequences of digital signals by repetitive scan in the second direction of said two-dimensional format;
- a digital-to-analog converter for receiving the digital output of said random access memory and developing commensurate analog signals;
- and
- display means responsive to said analog signals for producing a raster format of the visual information contained in said selected portion of said field of view.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.