New Camera System To Enhance Image Capture

Research team from the University of Bonn and University of Columbia, developed a camera which can capture around the corner. This technology uses diffusely reflective lights for reconstructing the shape of objects which is not in direct field of view of the camera or the person who is holding it. Professor Dr. Ing. Matthias B. Hulin from University of Bonn, working on this project closely, shares mathematical procedure created by his team, which was coupled by the camera system, in order to transform the wall virtually into the mirror.

In the setup, the laser light was shown on the wall which acted as a source of information. The light which bounced back had some valuable data in it about the appearance of such object beyond the wall and around the corner. The light echo was captured by researchers which is actually time resolved data which can be used later to reconstruct the object. A special camera system was developed by the team which records the direction of the light and see how long it took the light from source to the camera.

By using image sensors from video and spare cameras, the team measured the sum of numerous light reflections which reached the camera lens through multiple paths. The real challenge for the team was to extract the information from the data. Mathematical procedures gave them the required results. It is not the perfect model and has room for improvement. Team is looking at achieving a higher resolution of images soon. This technique can be used in number of fields such as medical imagery, remote sensing and telecommunications.