Single-lens single-image incoherent passive-ranging systems

We introduce a new system for single-lens single-image incoherent passive ranging. The only a priori object information this system requires is that the objects to be ranged must possess a low-pass spatial frequency spectrum. Physically, this system for passive ranging is a standard optical imaging system that is customized with a special-purpose optical mask or filter. Analytically, this optical mask customizes the transfer function of the optical system in such a way that objects form images that contain range-dependent information. This range-dependent information lies in the spatial spectrum nulls or zeros of the image.