Epilogue

This book was written with the concept of “what is imaging?” as its core. From this perspective, the structure of image information, imaging system architecture, and the impacts of consequent built-in digitized coordinate points in systems have been described.

Technical innovations at the beginning and recent progress in the state of the art have been discussed from the viewpoint of practical use.

As the history shows, techniques actually used are often replaced, for reasons of performance and cost, in the next phase. Limitations of the previous technique and feasibility of the new technique have been shown.

It seems that one of the ultimate targets in the current technology is pixel-level digital signal sensors. However, at a more advanced stage, in the future, we might be released from the “pixel” concept, which provides the benefit of easy signal treatment under the present architecture, but ties us down.

There is much expectation and excitement regarding the functions that will be included in future sensors and it is strongly expected that they will be integrated with brain function sometime in the future.

Takao Kuroda