ABSTRACT
An imaging sensor converts an “image”, i. e., the spatially varying irradiance on the image plane into a digital data stream that can be stored and processed by a digital computer. In this chapter, we discuss the conversion of radiative energy into electrical charges and the formation of electrical signals and data streams from the spatial image. The spatial and temporal sampling of the image signal (digitization) and limitation to discrete signal levels (quantization) are treated in Chapter 6.
