title: Information content per photon versus image fidelity in three-dimensional photon-counting integral imaging.
abstract: Photon-counting integral imaging has been introduced recently, and its applications in three-dimensional (3D) object sensing, visualization, recognition, and classification under photon-starved conditions have been demonstrated. This paper sheds light on the underlying information-theoretic foundation behind the ability of photon-counting integral imaging in performing complex tasks with far fewer photons than conventional imaging systems. A metric for photon-information content is formulated in the context of 3D photon-counting imaging, and its properties are investigated. It is shown that there is an inherent trade-off between imaging fidelity, measured by the entropy-normalized mutual information associated with a given imaging system, and the amount of information in each photon used in the imaging process, as represented by the photon-number-normalized mutual information. The dependence of this trade-off on photon statistics, correlation in the 3D image, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the photon-detection system is also investigated.
authors.affiliation: Center for High Technology Materials and Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-1356, USA. hayat@chtm.unm.edu
authors.forename: Majeed M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Hayat
authors.forename: Srikanth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Narravula
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pepin
authors.forename: Bahram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Javidi