Patent ID: 7349087

Claim:
A method of determining polarization profiles of points in a scene from video frames using Stokes parameters, the method comprising: emitting scene light rays from points in a region in a scene; emitting a correlator light ray from a correlator, wherein the correlator comprises a uniform light source, a second linear polarizer, and a fixed retarder; substantially simultaneously transmitting the scene light rays and the correlator light ray through a color filter and a Stokes filter that comprises a rotating retarder having angular positions Ω, and a first linear polarizer having a transmission axis to a video camera having a video frame; projecting onto respective pixels in the video frame and recording as two-dimensional (2-D) arrays images corresponding to the scene light rays and the correlator light ray, wherein the images are used for calculating respective Stokes parameters of the points in the scene when the transmission axis of the first linear polarizer is fixed using the images corresponding to the scene light rays and the correlator light ray from four unique ones of the angular positions Ω of the rotating retarder via programming in a computer system; and downloading the images into the computer system and storing the images into a memory in the computer system.