Simulating Speckle with Python

The speckle phenomenon is ubiquitous, occurring in all regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as in both ultrasound and synthetic-aperture-radar imaging. Speckle occurs whenever radiation is reflected from a surface that is rough on the scale of a wavelength or is passed through a diffusing surface that introduces random path-length delays on the scale of a wavelength. This book is devoted to simulation of speckle phenomena using the software package Python. Various techniques for simulating speckle are discussed. Simulation topics include first-order amplitude and intensity statistics, speckle phenomena in both imaging and free-space propagation, speckle at low light levels, polarization speckle, phase vortices in speckle, and speckle metrology methods.