The present invention relates to the superposing of a visible image and of a synthetic hologram.
Fighting imitations is a major concern of industry. To guarantee the origin of their products, manufacturers must use secure identification and traceability elements. Such elements must be sufficiently complex to design and to obtain, in order to deter or even prevent their copying. Various solutions have thus been developed for this purpose.
It has been provided to use data matrixes, which are two-dimensional bar codes. Such matrixes are formed of white and black squares which enable to code data in a binary format. The information contained in the data matrix may be protected by a read code which prevents its deciphering by those who do not have the key.
It has also been provided to use synthetic holograms formed on small supports. Such holograms are difficult to copy since they result from sophisticated manufacturing technologies and require dedicated equipment for their reading.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,193,754 provides superposing a directly-visible image to a synthetic hologram in order to make copies even more difficult. The white unwritten areas of the hologram enable to reveal, by contrast with the written areas of the hologram, an image, for example, a portrait or a data matrix. A disadvantage of the provided method is that the hologram portion placed under the visible image is suppressed. This omission of part of the hologram however enables to read the content of the hologram, but with a decreased resolution, the resolution being proportional to the hologram surface area for a hologram of given definition.
The present invention aims at forming a synthetic hologram to which a visible image is superposed without losing information contained in the hologram and without decreasing the hologram definition.
Thus, an embodiment of the present invention provides a synthetic hologram formed of a network of coding cells, comprising a pattern in which the cells are inverted and have a phase modified by an offset value with respect to the rest of the hologram.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the offset is constant and equal to π, whereby the optical reconstruction of the hologram is not disturbed and the pattern can be directly observed.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the offset is constant and different from π, the optical reconstruction of the hologram being performed with a phase key introducing, according to the shape of said pattern, a phase-shift complementary to π of said offset.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the offset is not constant and is different from π in different areas of said pattern, the optical reconstruction of the hologram being performed with a phase key introducing, according to the shape of said areas of said pattern, a phase-shift complementary to π of said offset.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the pattern in a grey-level image obtained by screening based on a screening cell, the size of the screening cell being an integral multiple of the size of a cell of the hologram.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the pattern is a random or semi-random matrix of black and white pixels, the size of a pixel of the pattern being an integral multiple greater than or equal to 1 of the size of a cell of the hologram.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the image coded by the hologram has a decreased useful area, offset from the center of the general image by a distance at least equal to half the length of the useful area.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, the image is offset by the introduction of a linear phase component in the phase distribution of the hologram.
The present invention also provides a method for manufacturing a synthetic hologram superposed to a directly visible pattern, comprising the steps of:
The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will be discussed in detail in the following non-limiting description of specific embodiments in connection with the accompanying drawings, among which:
The present invention is based on an analysis and on a specific use of the properties of a synthetic hologram, which will be reminded hereafter.
Synthetic holography is the science which enables to generate beam B in order to obtain computer-generated image 3.
If r designates a unity vector with radial coordinates, and
E=a(r)·eiφ(r), and
B=b(r)·ei(ψ(r),
the mathematic resolution of the problem assumes calculating transfer function H provided by the following equation:
H(r)=[b(r)/a(r)]·ei(ψ(r)−φ(r) (1)
In the rest of the discussion, wave A is assumed to be planar and uniform so that E≅1. In practice, equation (1) is impossible to fully satisfy. It must indeed be possible to manufacture a transmission element capable of coding both the phase and the amplitude of the incident wave. To do away with this constraint, many strategies have been developed.
The synthetic hologram generation method set forth by Brown and Lohmann in 1966 “Complex Spatial Filtering with Binary Masks”, Appl. Opt. 5, 967-969, which comprises segmenting transfer function H into cells, will be considered herein. Each cell comprises two regions having different transmission or reflection characteristics. For example, each cell comprises an opaque portion and a transparent portion (or a reflective portion and a transparent or opaque portion). The relative dimension of the two portions corresponds to the amplitude, and the offset of the central portion with respect to the center of the cell corresponds to the phase.
Two beams 6a and 6b are thus generated to the right and to the left, along direction y, corresponding to orders +1 and −1 of the diffraction grating. They provide, after the passing through the Fourier lens, two light spots symmetrical with respect to central spot 5 of order 0 of the beam.
Along the vertical direction (direction x), one can find two diffracted beams 7a and 7b, at the top and at the bottom, corresponding to orders +1 and −1 of the hologram. After the Fourier lens, these beams will reproduce the desired image 3 and its conjugate. Additional images generated by the hologram sampling distribute around these images.
The reading is thus performed by illuminating the hologram with a coherent laser-type beam, by recovering the wave diffracted by a Fourier lens, and by detecting the desired image area with a camera.
The hologram manufacturing follows the steps of:
The present discussion considers the case of the coding developed by Brown and Lohmann in 1966. Other cell coding methods apply similarly. The interference pattern method may also be used.
The present invention is based on an analysis of hologram reading properties.
Ia=FT(EH)×FT(EH)*
A specific property of the hologram, general to the diffraction principle, relates to the diffraction of the hologram negative. A hologram negative is a hologram having inverted transmissive and opaque portions. The negative representation of the hologram may be mathematically noted 1-H. It can be shown that such a negative in which a π phase shift is imposed to each of the cells provides in read mode an image Ib identical to image Ia of the corresponding positive hologram.
Generally, the aspect of a hologram in positive mode is a light image (comprising much more white than black areas) while that of a hologram in negative mode is a dark image (comprising many more black areas than white). It is here provided to mix, in a same hologram, cells in positive mode and in negative mode. This enables to generate a directly visible image corresponding to the pattern of the cells in negative mode.
Image 3 is subtracted from image 1 as shown in
As can be seen, a new hologram H′ in which letter A appears in image 6 without having lost any data of the original hologram is obtained.
On reconstruction, the image generated by phase-shifted inverted hologram H′ is mathematically identical to that generated by hologram H.
The manufacturing of a synthetic hologram according to an embodiment of the present invention thus follows the steps of:
It has been explained that for the combined (positive-negative) hologram to provide the same image as the original hologram, the negative hologram had to be phase-shifted by π. To achieve this, it has been provided to phase-shift by π each cell of the hologram. Other embodiments may be implemented.
As an example,
f1+f0=±πmodulo2π (2)
The distributions of phase shifts f1 and f0 may also be non-constant, provided for relation (2) to remain true at all function definition points.
The use of a phase shift different from π may be advantageous in that the reading of the hologram requires using a phase key.
Assembly for the Reading of Holograms
A laser 9 shaped by a telescopic-type system 10 capable of containing a spatial filter 11 is used. The beam having a diameter of the order of magnitude of the hologram size arrives on a semi-reflective cube 12. The transmitted beam optionally crosses a retardation plate 8, and then illuminates hologram 1.
The beam diffracted by reflection crosses back the retardation plate, which has a phase shift adapted to this back and forth travel (in practice, the phase shift induced by the plate is half the necessary phase shift). Then, it crosses the cube and part of the diffracted beam is sent back onto Fourier optics 2, after which its image is formed on an array sensor 14.
Part of the incident beam crosses the hologram. Optics 13 then ensures an imaging relation between the hologram plane and the plane of array sensor 15 to form the image superposed to the hologram on said plane. To avoid disturbances inherent to coherent mode imaging, a second incoherent light source may be used to display the image superposed to the hologram on sensor 15.
Hologram Manufacturing
The manufacturing of holograms according to the invention raises no specific technical issues. The hologram cells are divided into sub-portions corresponding to the write resolution of the used lithography tool (electronic beam, laser writing . . . ).
Scanning step A is selected to provide the best compromise between the write time and the right aperture definition.
Hologram Design
The reconstructed image is below optical axis 28 at a distance D set by three parameters:reading wavelength λ, cell definition step p, and focal distance f of the lens used for the reading. Distance D is provided by:
D=λ·f/p
Distance D also corresponds to the image size.
Replicas caused by the sampled character of the hologram are distributed around the central image. The visibility of such replicas decreases as the distance to the central image increases. Such a radial weighting 29 depends on the diffraction efficiency of the apertures.
Another weighting 30 due to the numerical aperture of the read optics adds to this weighting. The conjugate order has not been shown in
It is important to understand the reconstruction to optimally choose the hologram.
Most of the illumination beam undisturbed by the hologram is concentrated at the level of optical axis 28. This is the lens focusing point.
Additional information has been added to the hologram in the form of the superposed pattern defined by image Im. The reading of the hologram will generate two Fourier transforms. The first one corresponds to H and is distributed in orders +1 and −1 of the hologram. The second one corresponds to the Fourier transform of image Im. Since the Fourier transform generates no angular carrier, due to its design, its Fourier transform is centered on optical axis 28.
The two cases are equivalent but the second solution should be preferred on account of its simplicity. It takes advantage of a specific property of the FT described in the following equation:
FT[h(x)e−2iπυ0x]={hacek over (h)}(υ−υ0)
To optimize the reconstruction, the useful area of the image may also be concentrated in the image to be reconstructed, as shown in
The nature of the superposed images may however be different. In particular, images in grey levels may be considered. To achieve this, two levels of cells may be defined, as shown in
Cell 32 is the superposed image screening definition cell. The size of cell 32 is provided by a multiple N greater than or equal to 1 of the size of cell 32. In the illustrated case, the multiple is equal to 7.
The grey level image is defined by a screening on a cell of N×N pixels. In the case of the drawing, N=7 and the image may be coded over at least 11 grey levels.
The apparent grey level is provided by the size of the different groups of dark cells 31. If dark cells 31 cover the entire cell 32, this image area will appear to be black. Conversely, if no dark cell 31 is present in cell 32, this image area will be perceived as white by the viewer. In between, the filling of dark cells in cell 32 gives the viewer the illusion of the grey level when the image is seen from a certain distance. This is called screening and is widely used in printing.
A privileged case of application of the present invention relates to the superposing of a data matrix image. In this case, the pixel of the data matrix is similar to cell 32, as shown in
The advantage of the data matrix is that the superposed image is highly structured. Reconstructing the underlying hologram is very difficult, unless using the technique provided herein.
In this case also, the use of a phase key is particularly relevant.
The apparent grey level is provided by the size of the different groups of dark cells 31. If dark cells 31 cover the entire cell 32, this image area will appear to be black. Conversely, if no dark cell 31 is present in cell 32, this image area will be perceived as white by the observer. In between, the filling of cell 32 with dark cells gives the user the illusion of the grey level when the image is watched from a certain distance. This is called screening and is widely used in printing.
Simulations
To illustrate the advantages of the method and of the device described herein, the case of a double data matrix coding is discussed hereinafter.
In
The same data matrix is used to generate the coded image of the hologram. To achieve this, the data matrix is sampled to cover an area of 240×240 pixels in an image also having a 600×600-pixel dimension.
The hologram reconstruction has then been simulated in the case of a 650-nm reading with a 4-m hologram step. The coding of
It should be noted that simulations do not take into account phenomena of weighting by the radial variation of the diffraction efficiency. The image in
This simulation clearly shows that the method provided herein introduces an unquestionable gain over prior art.
In the practical rereading assembly, parasitic noise inevitably occurs. The detected signal is thus altered. The solution provided by
Experimental Results
Experimental results enabling to underline the advantages of the provided method will be indicated hereinafter.
For the needs of the demonstration, four holograms have been etched for comparison with
Finally,
Various embodiments with different variations have been described hereabove. It should be noted that those skilled in the art may combine various elements of these various embodiments and variations without showing any inventive step.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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09 56913 | Oct 2009 | FR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/FR2010/052088 | 10/4/2010 | WO | 00 | 5/2/2012 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2011/042649 | 4/14/2011 | WO | A |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
7538920 | Noguchi | May 2009 | B2 |
RE41455 | Komma et al. | Jul 2010 | E |
20070047041 | Noguchi | Mar 2007 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
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0449164 | Oct 1991 | EP |
H0798431 | Apr 1995 | JP |
2000214750 | Aug 2000 | JP |
2007065139 | Mar 2007 | JP |
Entry |
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Written Opinion of the International Searching Authority in PCT/FR10/052088. |
International Search Report issued in PCT/FR2010/052088 on Jan. 31, 2011. |
EPO machine translation of specification of JPH0798431. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20120262768 A1 | Oct 2012 | US |