Optimal discrimination of multiple regions with an active polarimetric imager

Until now, most studies about polarimetric contrast optimization have focused on the discrimination of two regions (a target and a background). In this paper, we propose a methodology to determine the set of polarimetric measurements that optimize discrimination of an arbitrary number of regions with different polarimetric properties. We show on real world examples that in some situations, a few number of optimized polarimetric measurements can overcome the performance of full Mueller matrix imaging. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America