Abstract: A conformal image processing apparatus and method in which image information is quantized into volume elements which are represented and stored in an array in such a fashion as to preserve their positional and orientational correlations. Data thus stored may be easily manipulated to model a number of three-dimensional operatoins on sensed objects and volumes.

Abstract: In a quadrature amplitude modulator, two binary, synchronous data signals representing four possible phase states of a carrier signal are sampled and respectively fed into two shift registers comprising part of a finite impulse response lowpass filter. The samples in each corresponding pair of stages in the shift registers are multiplexed at twice the carrier frequency. Each multiplexer output is then added modulo-two to a binary signal at the carrier frequency using exclusive-OR gates. The gate outputs are weighted in a desired fashion and summed and converted to an analog signal which exhibits a preferred spectral shape. This approach enables the quadrature amplitude modulation function to be included within the structure of the finite impulse response lowpass filter. The binary synchronous nature of the input data enables the structure of the filter to be simplified and the number of multiplexers and modulo-two adders to be reduced to a number equal to the number of bits stored from the input sequences.