Image hiding using optical interference
Yan Zhang, Weining Wang · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2010
Optical image encryption technology has attracted a lot of attentions due to its large capacitance and fast speed. In conventional image encryption methods, the random phase masks are used as encryption keys to encode the images into white noise distribution. Therefore, this kind of methods requires interference technology to record complex amplitude and is vulnerable to attack techniques. The image hiding methods which employ the phase retrieve algorithm to encode the images into two or more phase masks are proposed, the hiding process is carried out within a computer using iterative algorithm. But the iterative algorithms are time consumed. All method mentioned above are based on the optical diffraction of the phase masks. In this presentation, a new optical image hiding method based on optical interference is proposed. The coherence lights which pass through two phase masks are combined by a beam splitter. Two beams interfere with each other and the desired image appears at the pre-designed plane. Two phase distribution masks are design analytically; therefore, the hiding speed can be obviously improved. Simulation results are carried out to demonstrate the novelty of the new proposed methods. This method can be expanded for double images hiding.