New Camera System Doesn't Use Mirrors To Capture Objects Placed Around A Corner

Capturing an object positioned around a corner from a camera seems like an impossible task if you don't have a mirror at hand. Well, no magic tricks involved when it comes to the work of a research team from University of Bonn and the University of British Columbia, Vancouvera have developed a camera that can actually "see" around the corner. The novel technology introduced here makes use of diffusely reflected light for reconstructing the shape of objects that's not in the direct field of view of the camera or the person holding it. Prof. Dr. Ing. Matthias B. Hullin from the University of Bonn, who works on this project, shares that the mathematical procedure they created, was coupled with the camera system so that they could transform the wall virtually into a mirror.

In their setup, the laser light shone on the wall would itself act as the source of information. Some of the laser light that gets rebound from the wall also contains some valuable data about the appearance of the object beyond the wall and around the corner. The team has been successful in capturing this "light echo". This light is nothing but the time-resolved data which is later used to reconstruct the object. To achieve this, the team developed a special camera system that records not only the direction from which the light is coming but also how long it took the light to get from the source to the camera.


Using readily available image sensors from video controllers and spare cameras, the team measured the sum of numerous light reflections which reached the camera through multiple paths. On superimposing them over each other on the image sensor, they were able to get the desired image capture.

The ability to extract only the desired information from this data has been a challenge for the engineering team. Their exclusive mathematical procedure they employed was able to achieve them reasonable results. Thanks to some smart coding and their call on keeping the technical complexity to the very minimal, the researchers were able to do a rapid development of the novel camera system. Their method isn't of course full-proof yet. It comes with its own set of limitations. Even though that's the case, the team looks confident about achieving an even higher resolution soon enough. The applications of the new tech can be found very useful in the field of medical imagery, remote sensing as well as telecommunications.

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