Abstract: A probe for use in a coax-to-waveguide transition is uniformly coated with a dielectric material by inserting the probe through an elastic membrane covering a container of uncured RTV elastomer to thereby dip the probe. The membrane wipes excess elastomer from the probe during withdrawal, and seals the RTV from ambient air to thereby prevent its premature curing in the container. If moved sideways before withdrawal, the coating thickness can be made to favor one side over another. A magnetic block is fitted into a waveguide. A slot in the magnetic block is also filled with uncured RTV elastomer. The probe is inserted into the slot, embedding it in the uncured RTV. Upon curing, the probe is protected from high voltage arcing to the waveguide. A cured RTV elastomer washer is preassembled to the probe before dipping, to precisely fill the void between the connector base and the magnetic block with a like material.

Abstract: A switched inerconnection system for interconnecting the data input and output ports of a plurality of individual data processors, terminals, sensors, robots or the like of a parallel data processing system includes a plurality of identical modules and custom interconnections. Each module includes on-board interconnections between input and output ports for providing interconnections among the processors coupled to that module, for thereby reducing the number of customized interconnections between modules.

Abstract: A helical storage system for linked ammunition, has no outer drum and only two moving parts, providing positive control of the rounds, low friction, and bi-directional load and unload.

Abstract: An optical beam scanner or spoiler includes an array of electrically controlled liquid crystal phase shifters. Each element of the phase shifter includes an active region where proper phase shift occurs, and also includes another region, generally near the edges of the element, in which light transmission does not occur or in which improper modulation results. The inefficient regions reduce the light transmission or modulation efficiency of the array. An aperture illuminator includes a Talbot plane phase plate (also known as a Fresnel image phase plate) interposed between the incident light beam and the liquid crystal array. The phase plate includes a transparent substrate with a binary pattern of regions of relatively higher and lower index of refraction in a repeating pattern with a period P. In a particular embodiment of the invention, the regions are physically raised and lowered portions of a surface.

Abstract: A waveguide having walls defining an opening. An optically transmissive aperture in one wall allows light from an optical illumination source such as a laser diode array to illuminate the opening in which is located a semiconductor slab positioned to be illuminated. When the array illuminates the slab, the propagation characteristics (phase velocity and attenuation constant) of the waveguide changes. A continuous wave signal passing through the waveguide is thus attenuated and phase shifted. The laser array may be pulsed on and off while still maintaining the altered propagation constant.

Abstract: A helmet mountable display system may display a raster scanned image to each eye of a wearer of the helmet for presenting a stereoscopic image. The system includes a first and second lens having a respective optical axis and first and second oscillatable deflecting surfaces for generating the raster. The lenses may be arranged so that the optical axes from a V with the first and second deflecting surfaces disposed substantially at the apex of the V. This arrangement may be bilaterally symmetrical such that a plurality of light rays for forming a first image passes through the first lens along one optical path, strikes the first deflecting surface, is directed onto the second deflecting surface, and is directed through the second lens toward a focal plane where a real image is available to be supplied to one eye.

Abstract: In computer image generation (CIG) systems, image data for defining pixel modulation values and for supporting a display having a predetermined resolution are determined for defining a scene. For some applications, such as for representing background and/or peripheral areas, it may be acceptable to use data having a lower resolution than the predetermined resolution. Method and apparatus for taking a portion of the image data obtain derived data by a predetermined combination of the portion of image data. Lines of composed data supplied to a display device include a sequence of pixel modulation values selected from the portion of image data and the derived data. In one embodiment the number of lines supported by the image data is doubled with each line containing 50% image data and 50% derived data. Pixel modulation values may be oversampled between adjacent lines of the display for obtaining derived data.

Abstract: The human eye is more sensitive to brightness than to color. Accordingly, color definition is defined by a luminance or brightness (Y) component, an in-phase component (I) and a quadrature component (Q) and which are appropriately processed before being converted to more traditional red, green and blue (RGB) components for color display control. Scaling and redesignating YIQ data permits representation by fewer bits than a RGB scheme during processing. Also, Y values may be processed at one level of detail while the corresponding I and Q data values may be processed at a lesser level of detail. Translucency information may also be accommodated.

Abstract: A semiconductor material is overlayed with sequentially stacked layers including a protective layer, an affinity layer having an affinity for a second implant blocking material comprising tungsten, a first implant blocking layer and a masking layer having a first pattern. A portion of the first blocking layer not being masked is removed to expose a first portion of the affinity layer and a first dopant is implanted into the underlying semiconductor through the exposed first portion of the affinity layer. The mask is removed to expose the first blocking layer and a second blocking layer is formed from the second blocking material over the exposed first portion of the affinity layer but not over the exposed first blocking layer. The first blocking layer is removed to expose a second portion of the affinity layer which constitutes a second pattern. A second dopant is implanted into the underlying semiconductor through the exposed second portion of the affinity layer.

Abstract: A full color real time cell texture generator uses a tapered quantization scheme for establishing a small set of colors representative of all colors of a source image. A source image to be displayed is quantitized by selecting the color of the small set nearest the color of the source image for each cell of the source image. Nearness is measured as Euclidian distance in a three-space coordinate system of the primary colors: red, green and blue. In a specific embodiment, an 8-bit modulation code is used to control each of the red, green, blue and translucency content of each display pixel, thereby permitting independent modulation for each of the colors forming the display image.

Abstract: A helmet mountable display system includes separate optical paths for providing a respective image to the left and right eye of an observer for stereoscopic viewing. Each of a first and second plurality of spaced apart, substantially point light sources supply a respective group of modulated rays of light. The rays of each group are collimated by a respective input lens and the collimated rays from each input lens are directed so that their envelopes all intersect at the same point. A horizontal and a vertical deflecting surface are disposed on opposite sides of the intersection point. Electro-mechanical drivers move the surfaces which scan all the collimated rays. The scanned rays from each group are focused onto a respective screen by a respective output lens to form a raster scanned image. The screens are divided into a plurality of contiguous zones with a ray from each light source assigned to a corresponding zone, which reduces the vertical scan angle excursions required.

Abstract: A power supply for a Xenon lamp of a projection television includes a pulse-width-modulator that is included in a power regulating outer feedback loop and in a current-mode inner feedback loop. A current sensing transformer, responsive to a current in a chopper arrangement of the power supply, generates a signal that is coupled to a lowpass filter. The filter generates a ramping portion of each pulse of a control signal that is coupled to a current sensing terminal of the pulse-width-modulator. A switch operating synchronously with a horizontal sync signal is coupled across a capacitor of the lowpass filter to completely discharge the capacitor prior to the beginning of each ramping portion.

Abstract: The invention relates to a microstrip to stripline transition which achieves good electrical performance and permits easy, solderless disconnection. The upper portion of the stripline is omitted permitting a flying lead bonded to the microstrip conductor, and which extends across a gap, to be held in contact with the stripline conductor by a removable filler block, which replaces the omitted upper portion of the stripline. The air gap, and the width of the stripline and microstrip conductors adjacent the air gap are dimensioned to form the electrical equivalent of a pi network to achieve a desired response.The filler block is held in place, in one embodiment, by an elongated conductor bridging the upper and lower ground planes of the stripline and which is cut away to form a short waveguide section encircling the transition. The waveguide section is dimensioned to favor only a desired TEM stripline mode and suppress undesired waveguide modes for increased transition efficiency over a desired band.

Abstract: In a computer image generation system, the choice of a path for a vehicle model over a landscape is not restricted. Objects and features in an image to be displayed are defined by polygons. Plumb vectors, having a predetermined relationship with the vehicle model, are used to obtain samples of the terrain at the intersection between the vectors and polygons defining the ground in the vicinity of the vehicle model. The vectors may sample in advance of the vehicle model in the direction of motion or under the vehicle model. The polygons may be encoded with characteristics of the terrain they define so that appropriate noise cues can be generated from information extracted at the intersection of the plumb vectors and polygons. Predetermined ones of the sample points are interpolated for inferring the contour and slope of the terrain before interaction between the vehicle model and interpolated terrain is determined.

Abstract: A real time computer image generation system incorporating comprehensive distortion correction in which a predistorted image is computed and placed on a projection raster prior to projection onto a view screen in order that the image as seen by a viewer appears correct. A method for implementing comprehensive distortion correction in real time utilizes fixed transfer characteristics of a projection lens coupled with scene by scene translation of each of a plurality of predetermined points from a projection raster to a location on a view screen. Each image is divided into a plurality of spans and the span corners are mapped from the projection raster to the view screen. The location of image vertices on the view screen are determined with respect to the viewer and the vertices are mapped to corresponding locations on the projector raster.

Abstract: An improvement for the real-time computer generation of visual scenes based on an algorithm that reduces the processing of elevation data to simple repetitive accumulations and a compare operation to generate occult data using grid elevation data bases is disclosed. The improvement reduces the size of the on-line, high speed, random access, data base memory required in image generation from grid data bases and reduces image generation time. The grid data base is divided into an array of data blocks. The data blocks are sequentially transferred to on-line ping-pong buffer memories (14), and each data block is processed through to final display by a view ray processor (16). The order of block selection is such that the sweep data remains continuous. When a sweep leaves a block, exit processing parameters are stored in a sweep horizon memory (18) as sweep parameters.

Abstract: A method for determining color information in a computer image generated display in which the display is divided into a plurality of spans and each span comprises a matrix of pixels, each of the pixels being further divided into a matrix of subpixels, which method and apparatus allows overlapping and inner penetrating faces appearing in an image to be resolved without conflict. Faces of objects appearing in an image are resolved by a range ordering process for each span in an image. The faces are reordered into range separable groups in which a range separable group is defined as faces in which the maximum range to the most distant face in a group does not overlap the minimum range of the nearest face in another group. Each range separable group of faces is then processed on a per pixel basis for determining the color contribution of that face or group of faces to each subpixel within a pixel.

Abstract: An improvement for the real-time computer generation of visual scenes based on an algorithm that reduces the processing of elevation data to simple repetitive accumulations and a compare operation to generate occult data using grid elevation data bases is disclosed. The improvement adds three dimensional texture to close approach scenes to provide visual cues to the observer. The texture data is derived from the grid elevation data base itself and includes delta elevation and delta color values. The delta elevation values are added to the interpolated elevations computed by the image generator and the delta color values modulate the interpolated colors computed by the image generator. Since the texture data base is derived from the grid data base itself, the texture data base is already on-line thereby simplifying the memory and computational requirements of the computer image generator.

Abstract: A method for computer image generation simulated visual scenes for applications such as flight training. The processing to generate the image takes place in three sequential stages: Controller, Geometry Processor, and Display Processor. At any point in time, the stages are processing data for three consecutive scenes. Each scene is comprised of a plurality of faces. Processing prior to the Display Processor accomplishes clipping and perspective transformation of faces. The Display Processor then generates the scene with pipeline processing accomplishing four major tasks: span detection or windowing, span sequencing, mask processing, and color processing. The improved realism of the computer generated image includes application of area-times-color smoothing, using fractional face areas to improve scene quality and reduce quantizing artifacts.

Abstract: A light valve projector of the Schlieren dark field type is provided with an improved input bar plate configuration which achieves greater light efficiencies. The improved input bar plate has orthogonally related rows and columns of slots in which the row slots are spaced between the column slots. Alternating rows of lenslets of a first array divide columns of lenslets of a second array. Light filtering is provided such that one color passes through the row slots and another color passes through the column slots. The output bar plate has a configuration which is complementary to the input bar plate.