The theory of the Moiré phenomenon. Vol. 2: Aperiodic layers. (Q855064)

This book on Moiré phenomena in aperiodic layers appears as a second volume of the same author after the one dedicated to the more familiar periodic case (see Zbl 0999.78004). It is at first surprising that aperiodic layers give rise to Moiré fringes, which are normally associated with effects connected with the superposition of periodic patterns. In fact, most of the cases considered are not Moiré phenomena of fully random structures, but of correlated aperiodic or pseudo-random layers. Considered in particular are structures obtained by applying small random deviations to periodic structures (see Figs. 2.7 and 7.18). The second preliminary remark is that the knowledge of the first volume is not required for the understanding of the second volume, which covers, so to say, the whole field. The matter is presented as interplay between concepts, geometric and algebraic ones, and visualization at the microscopic and at the macroscopic level, respectively, giving rise to global, local and/or to cross correlations, involving structures at various scales. A great number of variations is obtained by applying to one of the layers a full set of transformations: affine ones involving rotations, scaling and scale-rotations and more general mappings of the polynomial, the logarithmic and the trigonometric types, respectively. Different models are considered for the superposition of monochromatic layers: the multiplicative model (expressible in terms of Fourier convolution), the additive model (similar as the one obtained by photo exposition) and the inverse additive model. General properties are derived, like a fixed point theorem and dot alignment, with dot trajectories described as a vector field. The exposition is exemplary. One finds repetitions which are not redundant but justified from a didactic point of view and clearly based on a long teaching experience. So one finds in the Preface the goals of the book and in the Introduction again an overview with the scopes, followed by a full treatment given in six more chapters and no less than nine appendices dealing with the background mathematics. Each chapter is complemented by many nicely commented problems and exercises, and in one of the appendices one finds the glossary of the main terms. There are, not to forget, about 150 figures subdivided in about 400 different images and distributed among the chapters and the appendices, justifying the publication in the Springer's series of Computational Imaging. In the same spirit, postscript programs can be found at the Internet site \url{http://lspwww.epfl.ch/books/moire/}.