Trillion Frames Per Second Camera
The Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) had developed a camera which it claims will enable to readjust lighting after taking the shot. This unique camera captures – wait for it – one trillion frames per second. Thus it can follow the movement of individual light packets, or photons. Using the data captured by the system, researchers have analysed exactly how light scatters across an object in extremely high detail and this research has brought the possibility of doing ‘ultrasound’ scans with light, testing for defects during manufacturing processes, and importantly for you and me, holding out the prospect of overlaying light onto an image after it’s been taken. Thus consumer cameras with weak flashes could take professional studio-quality pix, according to MIT associate professor Ramesh Raskar, since new photos could be synthesized by adjusting the images to suggest truer light patterns.
The equipment cost $250,000 to build and incorporates a titanium sapphire laser and an adapted high-speed streak camera, which is an array of 500 sensors, triggered to capture light at a rate of 1 trillion times per second. Whereas most cameras shoot light in only one direction, a rotating mirror in the equipment captures images from several perspectives. The data thus gathered is then analyzed and compiled into a video showing the movement of light past, through or onto an object. The pattern of photons can then be analysed to look inside objects, for instance for medical imaging, where different paths taken by photons would suggest having passed through different materials, and so on. Just don’t expect it to be a feature of Photoshop in the next six months.
Check out this video of Ramesh Raskar associate professor of MIT (Media Lab):
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