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A Single Pixel Camera
BuzzSkyline writes "Scientists at Rice University have developed a one pixel camera. Instead of recording an image point by point, it records the brightness of the light reflected from an array of movable micromirrors. Each configuration of the mirrors encodes some information about the scene, which the pixel collects as a single number. The camera produces a picture by psuedorandomly switching the mirrors and measuring the result several thousand times. Unlike megapixel cameras that record millions of pieces of data and then compress the information to keep file sizes down, the single pixel camera compresses the data first and records only the compact information. The experimental version is slow and the image quality is rough, but the technique may lead to single-pixel cameras that use detectors that can collect images outside the visible range, multi-pixel cameras that get by with much smaller imaging arrays, or possibly even megapixel cameras that provide gigapixel resolution. The researchers described their research on October 11 at the Optical Society of America's Frontiers in Optics meeting in Rochester, NY."
It'll make current cameras, with simpler technology (less micromirror arrays and whatnot) cheaper? How? This stuff sounds expensiver.
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This could have some awesome applications, especially on space missions. Imagine the next generation of mars probes and the resolution of the pictures taken if a camera near the size of current ones could have thousands of times the resolution. And of course, you also need to think about spy satellites. But perhaps the coolest application would be on space telescopes...
Scientists at Rice University have developed a one pixel camera.
The camera's one pixel, but when you print it out full size, you get a mega pixel.
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One pixel should be enough for anybody.
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I'm trying to take apicture one pixel at a time!
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Early space cameras were single pixel and scanned their surroundings by their rotation.
Early fax machines worked the same way, but spun the paper around while the single photocell moved linearly left to right.
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If you record only (lossy) compressed data, that will limit your image quality.
If you record things "pseudo-randomly", it'll be harder to get a predictable result
If you record a billion pixels instead of a million, you'll need to store them.
If you reduce the number of pixels, you reduce your redundancy.
It's still an interesting idea and probably has some specialist applications that will be very practical. But don't look for this in your Nikon or Canon camera in the next 10 years. Not sure what they are but if it can be made small enough I imagine a gigapixel camera on a space probe or better yet a space telescope (which can have more time to collect data) might be one. Of course it could also end up useless. That doesn't mean the technology shouldn't be explored. You never know what's going to provide the next breakthrough in understanding or application.
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I have often thought that it would be really neat if you could get a visual image of radio waves like around for example 2.4ghz and be able to see exactly how your surroundings block/absorb/reflect those wave - in addition to seeing sources of the waves. They mention that might be possible by throwing a different sort of detector instead of a ccd in there? anyone know - would that be possible? do 2.4ghz waves bounce off anything else like light does mirrors, without getting scattered?
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or low light applications? i wonder what this idea would be like extended to non-electromagnetic phenomena, like electron microscopes, or neutron detectors or nuclear colliders or gravity waves. well, you need mirrors... "micromirrors"... but their are analogs to mirrors in non-electromagnetic phenomena. sort of
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my 2 MP camera has a hard enough time taking a clear picture when I'm holding it as still as I can and it's got like a 1/60 second shutter or something ridiculously fast like that. If you record an image one pixel at a time, it can't possibly be faster. Even those seemingly magic DLP mirrors couldn't possibly be faster.
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In fact, the first "TV"s were composed of a spinning disk with holes in front of a photomultiplier tube (the disks scanned the different bits of the image onto the camera), reconstruction was later done mechanically too. Where is the novelty?
It would be indeed impractical, and that makes this method quite useless in most applications. The researchers asked themselves "what if that single pixel receptor is good and expensive" while most modern answers are quite opposite to that - it's easier to make plenty of medium quality sensors than one good sensor. Not even counting the micro-mechanics needed. Solid state already gives you several megapixels for a few dollars, and the cost is only going down.
Is it really cheaper to manufacture micromirror arrays that CCD or CMOS sensors?
Also, what degree of photon loss do you have from the arrays? No mirror is perfect...
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can't wait for the first four pixel camera. Imagine the resolution of that one! ;-P
Instead of using micro mirrors, the Los alamos team used an LCD which were more mature at the time. And Instead of using random modulation they used a progression of zenike polynomials and thus achieved much more control over the data compression.
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Lock ten marketdroids in a room and give them a task to try and create a marketing campaign for something impossible and ridiculous. Like a one-pixel digital camera.
I'm envisioning a sticker on the box that reads "THE ONLY MICRO-MEGAPIXEL CAMERA!"
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A patent for "A single element detector acts as an array"
this could be useful for imaging in frequencies or frequency ranges where production of a pixel array isn't possible or economically feasable
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The technique in use for years for infra-red cameras involves the use of a single (Peltier-cooled) pixel and a scanner, but scanners have numerous problems one of which is that there is always vibration caused by the two frequency components of the line end switching of the horizontal and vertical scans. This technique, by using pseudo-random switching, should eliminate vibration.
So the ultimate long term goal would appear to be the ability to produce 3-D images with focus throughout the entire scene, low light capability and an absence of blur due to vibration. IANAOR (I am not an optical researcher) but it seems a good line of investigation.
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...but it'd suck to have a dead pixel.
If you are interested you can find out a lot about the really fascinating and cutting edge science of computationally assisted optics, or whatever is the correct term. It is the same field as the people who have been experimenting with giant arrays of cheap cameras, capturing entire light fields that can be sliced in time and space and reprojected later on, etc. It is computers plus physics and a big dose of creativity, which is why it is related to SIGGRAPH too.
Anyway this is interesting and is based on different principles from current megapixel cameras, which is why they think it might improve current cameras too. Just like the way the spaghetti physicists were laughed at by Harvard's igNobel, even though they finally solved something Feynman couldn't crack and have discovered a new method for focusing energy.
Just off-hand, the one pixel camera and compressive imaging theory they have looks very interesting:
The spammers have had these cameras for a long time. They're always emailing me the pictures they took with them.
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I guess that having all your data acquired by a single acquistion element may yield some precision advantages. One of the problems with arrays of elements is that each element will have very slightly different purity levels which can have a subtle effect on the signal acquired. Obviously not much of a issue for visible light photography but in situations where signal levels are very low for instance in gamma ray detection, this may yield benefits.
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With all the moving parts, how much power does this array consume? What happens if one of the actuators sticks: do you get dead pixel effects?
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How can an image which is constructed psuedorandomly ever compare to an image that is compressed using algorithms designed to preserve 'important' information?
It seems to me you need to assemble the image before you can decide what to throw away.
...single pixel monitor!
Check out Mars Viking lander. It used a "nodding" mirror with a 12 pixel array for its camera. This link gives a very detailed discussion on the Viking camera. http://dragon.larc.nasa.gov/viscom/first_pictures. html
A rather large slide show document gives a very high level overview of different imaging devices used in space probes.
http://www.mps.mpg.de/solar-system-school/lectures /space_instrumentation/11.ppt#281,1,Slide1
This kind of thing has been used for a long time: Nipkow Disk, Drum Scanner. The combination with micromirror arrays is new.
However, there's a reason we "acquire first, ask questions later", as the article talks about current systems: electronics is much better at "asking questions" than mechanical hardware.
There has been a single pixel camera available for a long time, under the part number ORP12.
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Like a lot of people who do not know any optics, I suspect you think that the light at the scene is somehow concentrated by the lens to form the image. It isn't; the lens doesn't suck in any extra light other than what impinges on it.
A single pixel is effectively approx f/1.
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About five pixels? :P
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I refer, of course, to the flying-spot scanner of early (and sometimes late) television.
it was very difficult to make a working early camera tube with lame phosphors, flaky passive components, and nightmare wiring. but it was pretty simple to paint a raster on a screen by comparison. so the object to be scanned was put in front of the raster and a single photodiode vacuum tube picked up the changes in brightness, and modulated the "spot" created by the line and position sweep signals.
old hat by the end of the 1920s, but used as late as the 1980s in super-quaity scanners to encode 35mm and 16mm film for network-quality television. the indian-head generators that took two racks of tubes, and provided the best signal reference at the start of a broadcast day and the best calibration signal for TV repairmen in the field, were all flying-spot scanners.
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here. It can grab an image using a single photocell. Note that the photocell (1) doesn't move and (2) collects light over a wide angle and yet I can still produce a picture. Yeah, yeah. It's not as good as your camera. But I don't have a multi-million dollar corporation funding me, just $100.
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