Methods and Apparatus for Transient Light Imaging

Abstract

In illustrative implementations of this invention, multi-path analysis of transient illumination is used to reconstruct scene geometry, even of objects that are occluded from the camera. An ultrafast camera system is used. It comprises a photo-sensor (e.g., accurate in the picosecond range), a pulsed illumination source (e.g. a femtosecond laser) and a processor. The camera emits a very brief light pulse that strikes a surface and bounces. Depending on the path taken, part of the light may return to the camera after one, two, three or more bounces. The photo-sensor captures the returning light bounces in a three-dimensional time image I(x,y,t) for each pixel. The camera takes different angular samples from the same viewpoint, recording a five-dimensional STIR (Space Time Impulse Response). A processor analyzes onset information in the STIR to estimate pairwise distances between patches in the scene, and then employs isometric embedding to estimate patch coordinates.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.