On CNN news, there was a story about an innovation in photography. Ramesh Raskar's team at the MIT Media Lab are working on creating a camera that can take a trillion frames per second (the speed of light). Although it won't be out for years, this technology could be helpful in preventing car crashes and in rescue missions.
Raskar worked on his idea for over three years and collaborated with ultrafast laser and phototonics experts, the MIT Media Lab, James Davis, Mathew Hirsch, Andreas Velten, and Moungi Bawendi to create femto photography. This is when you capture a segment of an image with a laser pulse on for a few femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second. This kind of photography captures a small slice of a photo at a time, each at a different angle. It takes about an hour to get an entire photo and as of right now, it can only take pictures of repeatable events.
To see around a corner, the camera has to use femto photography to analyze scattered light. They shoot a laser pulse at a wall, which scatters the particles of light. These particles return to the camera at different times. The camera records how long it takes for the particles to return to it and where they land. This is repeated about 60 times and then the camera uses math to calculate some stuff and recreate the image as a 3-D mock-up. This technology can be used in real life situations like in cars to see if there's another car pulling out around the corner. This could help in preventing crashes. It could also be used to help firefighters by seeing if there is anyone left in burning buildings without the firefighter having to go in and risk his/her life. This could help save lives. We can also use it to see deep inside our body's- even better than X-rays. This innovation in photography could help better society and could very well be applied to real life situations within the next 10 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment