MIT Femtosecond Laser Camera Shoots Pics Around Corners, No Periscope Required

By Clay Dillow Posted 11.17.2010 at 3:03 pm 11 Comments

Femtosecond Transient Imaging Camera Culture, MIT Media Lab

To most of us, seeing what’s around the corner before rounding the bend is known as premonition. For students and professors at MIT’s Media Lab, it’s called physics. The lab is working on a laser-based camera that can snap images around corners, imaging scenery that is beyond direct line of sight.

The camera works by incorporating complex computer algorithms with blasts from a femtosecond laser that issues ultra-short bursts of light lasting just one quadrillionth of a second. Those intense light bursts charge forward and illuminate a scene – even a scene around the corner from the source – sending photons bouncing around the area. Some of those photons make it back to the camera, which uses aforementioned complex computer mathematics to rebuild the scene around the corner, pixel by pixel.

Professor Ramesh Raskar, head of the Camera Culture group at MIT’s Media Lab, equates the technology to X-ray vision, but instead of going through an obstacle the camera uses light to go around it. That could have some seriously handy applications in the arenas of defense, search and rescue, or machine vision. Rescuers could use the technology to map collapsed buildings to search for survivors or determine the safety situation inside, and robot cars could quickly map the area directly around a corner before it begins a turn to ensure it charts the proper path.

There’s a bit more information via the Media Lab, but for more serious details check out this paper on transient imaging by one of the grad students involved with the project.

[MIT, TechRadar]

Previous Article: Professor Is Getting a Camera Surgically Implanted in the Back of His Head

Next Article: Taiwan To Build Tree-Like Skyscraper With Moving Exterior Observation Pods

11 Comments

Link to this comment

Brian P.

11/17/10 at 4:39 pm

Cool, I wonder when they'll start putting those on IPhones?

Link to this comment

RequiemsAllure

11/17/10 at 5:22 pm

super poppirazzi? lookout movie stars!

Link to this comment

Mathieu.LeBlanc

11/17/10 at 8:57 pm

pictures please?&???

Link to this comment

GotchaLookin

11/17/10 at 11:20 pm

Sounds like the MIT team has dug out the old over-the-horizon back-scatter radar image processing algorithms from the ABM radar systems - hooked in the reverse conjugate optical jitter correction work for earth-based telescopes from astronomy - and implemented the Fourier-transform math on really fast chipsets for real-time imaging and portability.

What is cool is that this stuff should work well in infrared wavelengths - which makes the femto-second light flash near invisible to human eyes.

Now we need to wait for a thriller movie to see the prototype in action, something like Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window."

Link to this comment

HAZE

11/18/10 at 10:02 am

Lulz, now the poppirazzi can look into celeberty houses more easliy.

Link to this comment

B.V.

11/18/10 at 11:03 am

Damn it PopSci... can you not implement a stronger CAPTCHA to keep out these damn spammers?

Every article I look at has tons of links to "U-GG Classic Cardy Boots" and the like! I don't even know what the hell that is, but I sure as hell don't want to look at it while looking at SCIENCE-related articles.

Obviously these moron "advertisers" don't know the first thing about target audiences, but good GAWD, why can you not block them?

There are PLENTY of open-source and free-to-use spam blocking engines to use for comment moderation...

PLEASE IMPLEMENT ONE, as clearly the CAPTCHA-only system you have now is NOT working...

Link to this comment

lokimotion

11/18/10 at 3:12 pm

*D Ace Lee*____Bobcat ftw____

not just poppirazzi but anyone who buys it. which means no more privacy. Better cover every crack in your room before you change clothes lol...

Link to this comment

wildcatherder

11/25/10 at 11:13 am

The headline is misleading: "around corners" is not the same as reflected from surfaces. A diagram at the Media Lab link clearly shows that a reflective path is required. This appears to be a technique where conventional holographic ray analysis is combined with time-domain information for geometry reconstruction. It is an impressive technique but does not work around corners where there is no reflective line-of-sight.

Link to this comment

wildcatherder

11/25/10 at 11:14 am

The open door actually does serve as a periscope.

Link to this comment

relaxamento

11/27/10 at 4:04 pm

yea, now the poppirazzi can look into celeberty houses more easliy...thanks !
http://www.relaxamento.net

Link to this comment

oralia89

12/02/10 at 4:03 am

I don't even know what the hell that is, but I sure as hell don't want to look at it while looking at www.sellcosplay.com SCIENCE-related articles.

Popular Tags

Technology

All Tags All Photos All Videos

Technology

+ More Photo Galleries

June 2013: American Energy Independence

Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.