Imaging system for imaging a scene comprising one or more objects with transparent surfaces

Abstract

An imaging system for imaging a scene including one or more objects, the system including: a light source arranged to illuminate the scene by projecting light rays through an array of points in space, wherein for each one of a sequence of time steps, the light source is configured to illuminate the scene with a different illumination pattern by projecting light rays through a different group of points in the array; a detector including an array of pixel elements, the detector being arranged to capture an image at each time step by detecting, on the array of pixel elements, light projected towards the scene and reflected from one or more surfaces of the object towards the detector; and an image processor configured to: process the captured images to determine, for each pixel element, a light signal incident on the pixel element during the course of the sequence of time steps; and determine, based on the light signal incident on the pixel element at each time step and knowledge of the illumination pattern projected at each time step, that the object includes a first surface that is at least partially transparent, at least a portion of the light incident on the first surface being reflected towards the detector, and another portion being reflected from a second surface located at a greater depth in the scene.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.