A new depth-sensing camera technology developed by CMU
and the
University of Toronto can capture 3-D information in even brightly lit scenes;
a prototype is able to sense the shape of a lit CFL bulb (above) that
would create blinding
glare for a conventional camera (below).
CMU, Toronto Researchers Foresee Applications in Medicine,
Games, Space Exploration
(August 10, 2015) Depth-sensing
cameras, such as Microsoft’s Kinect controller for video games, have become
widely used 3-D sensors. Now, a new imaging technology invented by Carnegie
Mellon University and the University of Toronto addresses a major shortcoming
of these cameras: the inability to work in bright light, especially sunlight.
The key is to gather only the bits of light the camera
actually needs. The researchers created a mathematical model to help program
these devices so that the camera and its light source work together
efficiently, eliminating extraneous light, or “noise,” that would otherwise
wash out the signals needed to detect a scene’s contours.
“We have a way of choosing the light rays we want to capture
and only those rays,” said Srinivasa Narasimhan, CMU associate professor of
robotics. “We don’t need new image-processing algorithms and we don’t need
extra processing to eliminate the noise, because we don’t collect the noise.
This is all done by the sensor.”
One prototype based on this model synchronizes a laser
projector with a common rolling-shutter camera — the type of camera used in
most smartphones — so that the camera detects light only from points being
illuminated by the laser as it scans across the scene.