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A Seriously High Speed Video Camera (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the there-is-no-such-thing-as-too-much-speed dept.

Mike Matter was showing off his edgertronic (named after Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton) high speed video camera at O'Reilly's inaugural Solid conference, when Tim Lord happened by his little show booth and started interviewing Mike with his normal speed camcorder. While Tim's camcorder shoots 720p at 30 or 60 frames per second, the edgertronic video camera shoots 720P at 700 frames per second, and can shoot lesser resolutions at up to 18,000 frames per second. But the big breakthrough here isn't performance. It's price. Most high-speed video cameras cost $20,000 to $50,000 (or even more), while Mike's edgertronic starts at a mere $5,495.00. This is still a little steep for hobby photographers, but is not bad for a tool used by professionals. And Kickstarter? You bet! Last year Mike raised $170,175, which was much more than his $97,900 goal. Now he's busy making and shipping cameras, working so many hours that he doesn't have time for his own photography. But sometimes that's the way life goes, and Mike seems to be handling it well. (Alternate Video Link)

43 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Kerr cell shutter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The camera will have some good applications but I'm more interested in the proprietary shutter technology. Is that a Kerr cell or something new?

    1. Re:Kerr cell shutter? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 5, Interesting

      More likely it's using cells as always on, and sampling the signal strength directly with a clocked chip. At that point, your sampling speeds depend on how quickly the cells can change state and how fast you can offload the sampled data.

      Based on the product's name, he's probably also making use of stroboscopic properties in interpretation by the sampling software to minimize the amount of data required to be handled in the offloading process.

      The cells he's using could be taking advantage of the kerr effect to increase the number of cells in a usable state at any given moment and thus increase the sampling speed accordingly, but he could also just be using fast cells, or use a holographic system, or any other number of methods of assigning cell sets per sample.

      He could even be using slow cells, and taking advantage of the stroboscopic effect in software to approximate the actual potential any cell should have if its actual potential and those of nearby cells has not changed since the prior sample.

      Interesting, no matter which method he used. And something that's actually worth patenting and licensing the patent for.

    2. Re:Kerr cell shutter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      More likely, he's using an OEM CMOS sensor chip and building his own back-end electronics, so it is all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. Lots of small camera vendors do that. I would be surprised if there is anything in there worth patenting.

    3. Re:Kerr cell shutter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You guys are thinking way to complicated. This is a standard, off-the-shelf sensor with electronic shutter. The innovation here is the system integration that turns this sensor into a scientific "camcorder" at a reasonable price. This is achieved by accepting video compression artifacts in the recorded streams. Existing high speed cameras are expensive not because of the sensors they use, but because of the vast amounts of memory and off-chip bandwidth they need to store the video uncompressed.

    4. Re:Kerr cell shutter? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      You guys are thinking way to complicated. This is a standard, off-the-shelf sensor with electronic shutter. The innovation here is the system integration that turns this sensor into a scientific "camcorder" at a reasonable price. This is achieved by accepting video compression artifacts in the recorded streams. Existing high speed cameras are expensive not because of the sensors they use, but because of the vast amounts of memory and off-chip bandwidth they need to store the video uncompressed.

      He could even be using slow cells, and taking advantage of the stroboscopic effect in software to approximate the actual potential any cell should have if its actual potential and those of nearby cells has not changed since the prior sample.

      IOW, what I said, but without the fancy language :) My entire point was that he *could* be doing something fancy, but as we said, the sensors used aren't really what enables him to do this. It's the lossy method of dumping the data off-chip.

  2. Where's the video link? by timeOday · · Score: 2

    This is a nice interview and all, but a story about a high-speed camera absolutely demands some cool high-speed footage of china shattering or a face getting punched or something.

    1. Re:Where's the video link? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is a nice interview and all, but a story about a high-speed camera absolutely demands some cool high-speed footage of china shattering or a face getting punched or something.

      I vote for the face getting punched. Its always fun to watch the punch ripple across someones face as a small drops of spit fling out.

  3. Only 5000 bucks? by MindPrison · · Score: 2

    Woah, that's cheap! Can you feel the wind beneath your wings? That's the customers rushing towards wallmart to buy one right now.

    I can remember a Casio camera that could take 1200 images per second in 2002, and it was a cheap consumer camera, here is the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

    Sure, it's not 18.000 FPS...but the price/fps ratio. meh...

    --
    What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
    1. Re:Only 5000 bucks? by asmkm22 · · Score: 2

      1200 images per second at a resolution of 336x96... That was a low resolution even for 2002.

    2. Re:Only 5000 bucks? by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 2

      According to the wikipedia page-- which doesn't appear to free from errors, Casio's high speed exlims date from 2008 (Pro EX-F1) and later. Moreover, the resolution at high speeds is significantly reduced-- 336*96 @ 1200 fps for one model, 224*64 @ 1000 fps for another.

      This camera also degrades video: but manages 866*720@1000, 640*480 @1849, and for the gimickry obsessed, 192*96 @ 17791.

    3. Re:Only 5000 bucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The Casio camera had a low-cost sensor that could only do high-speed capture at very low resolutions (224x64 at 1,000 frame/s) with rolling shutter effect.

    4. Re:Only 5000 bucks? by dj245 · · Score: 1

      Yep. Pretty useless for all but very very niche purposes.

      Do you have a use for 1200 images per second which is not a very niche purpose?

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    5. Re:Only 5000 bucks? by augahyde · · Score: 1

      1800 fps is at 192x96 resolution according to http://edgertronic.com/camera/....

    6. Re:Only 5000 bucks? by Splab · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "I went to see Professor Douglas Hartree, who had built the first differential analyzers in England and had more experience in using these very specialized computers than anyone else. He told me that, in his opinion, all the calculations that would ever be needed in this country could be done on the three digital computers which were then being builtâ"one in Cambridge, one in Teddington, and one in Manchester. No one else, he said, would ever need machines of their own, or would be able to afford to buy them."
      -- Douglas Hartree

      There are billions of smart people out there, just because you fail to see a purpose doesn't mean there isn't one, it just means you aren't the one making it rich in this niche.

    7. Re: Only 5000 bucks? by gordo3000 · · Score: 1

      Golf swing analysis. Good players would love this to check ball impact angles if the resolution was high enough.

    8. Re:Only 5000 bucks? by Dishevel · · Score: 2

      You are off there by a bit. The run about 18,000 FPS at that resolution. They get 1850 FPS at 640x480.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    9. Re:Only 5000 bucks? by augahyde · · Score: 1

      Yes, I meant 18,000.

  4. Not exactly needed by Simonetta · · Score: 1, Interesting

    A 700 frame per second camera really isn't needed by very many people. It doesn't matter if a new design reduces its price by an order of magnitude.

    What we need is the opposite: a very cheap camera with very high resolution and a very low price. Then we can put them on light poles and get good high-resolution courts-evidence-quality images of the people who are running out of nowhere to attack you, beat you senseless, and stealing your $500 bicycle when neighborhood is quite 100% gentrified yet.

    At the present we have low-res video of "people" doing this, but they are rarely have enough resolution to positively identify the attackers.

    Same with 'Flash mobs' that come into a store in groups of dozens, grab handfuls of stuff off the shelves, and just walk out in a large group.

    1. Re:Not exactly needed by asmkm22 · · Score: 1

      I guess it's a good thing this guy wasn't set out to solve your problem then. He identified a market (not yours) and went for it.

    2. Re:Not exactly needed by Bengie · · Score: 1

      At really high sampling rates, you can "see around corners" using math and looking at photons one at a time. I'm sure someone will think of of something cool to do with high video sampling some time in the future as better techniques and optics become cheap.

    3. Re:Not exactly needed by GrahamCox · · Score: 2

      Then we can put them on light poles and get good high-resolution courts-evidence-quality images of the people who are running out of nowhere to attack you, beat you senseless, and stealing your $500 bicycle when neighborhood is quite 100% gentrified yet.

      Your "vision" of the future is one I find creepy and chilling. It's what's already happening, and on the face of it (your argument) seems reasonable. Until the wrong people are fingered and framed, the fact that you cannot move without your every step being filmed and tracked, you get a knock-on-the-door-in-the-night from the goon squad because you were caught on camera dropping litter. It's a very very slippery slope. Personally I'll take my chances with the muggers and bike-stealers (in real terms, crime is lower than it has ever been at any time in history per head of population), if it means that we don't build such a nightmare panopticon.

    4. Re:Not exactly needed by SQLGuru · · Score: 1

      I'd love a high-speed camera that is cheap so that I can analyze my bowling swing. Sure, I don't *need* 700fps, but this isn't always about *need*.

    5. Re: Not exactly needed by Roblimo · · Score: 2

      A bowling alley or instructor might be a valid customer for this camera. Too pricey for you or a dozen like you, but spread it out over hundreds of users, it might make sense. Or possibly set up a "sports motion analysis" business that can be at a bowling alley tonight, a golf course tomorrow, a baseball practice facility next week, and so on.

    6. Re:Not exactly needed by atomicdragon · · Score: 1

      That requires gating the camera on the nanosecond time scale, which is many orders of magnitude away from something like this and a whole different technology. Most work with such cameras are limited to actually very slow frame rates (e.g. 60 Hz) but with a very fast shutter. The speed of such cameras is improving, and there is some tech coming out that allows multiple frames at nanosecond to picosecond separation, but it would still be a burst situation where you take a couple dozen images then have to wait milliseconds or longer to do it again. Neat videos of light propagation using such methods typically involve taking thousands of identical sequences and stitching them back together.

    7. Re:Not exactly needed by Splab · · Score: 1

      Computers didn't start out in the GHz range you know...

    8. Re:Not exactly needed by Thanshin · · Score: 1

      You really believe those two problems would be solved by better cameras?

    9. Re: Not exactly needed by gordo3000 · · Score: 1

      I can't believe the first comment realizing sports applications are awesome was bowling!! What about baseball and golf? Those are much higher speed motions where people already pay obscene amounts for high frame rate video to fix swing mechanics.

    10. Re:Not exactly needed by Dishevel · · Score: 1
      So stop trying to catch and jail the people "solving" crime and poverty by "redistributing" wealth.

      Contrary to shallow thinkers popular belief, wealth is something that can be created. If you want more people to have more money then what you need to do is create wealth. Making people not want to create it by calling them names and stealing their shit really helps much less than you think it does.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    11. Re:Not exactly needed by NIK282000 · · Score: 1

      This is not a security camera, this is a diagnostic tool, a high speed camera is the micrometer of video analysis, when you need to trouble shoot a high speed, complicated process this is the only way. This camera gives decent performance at an order of magnitude cheaper than all of it's competitors. Having a double digit resolution at 18,000fps sounds crappy but when you have a 3cm x 5cm area of interest it only takes a few more seconds of setup to make sure you get the data you need. High speed cameras are to security cameras what an oscilloscope is to a multi-meter, they are for completely different jobs.

      --
      Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
  5. Re:Flash, again? by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 2

    Hit the alternate link, or read the transcript. But yeah, I couldn't view the embedded link on my ipad, which is how I read slashdot half the time.

  6. Re:A Dice Idea by Roblimo · · Score: 2

    All the people who actually work on Slashdot agree with you. And we've been promised HTML5 "soon." Sigh.

  7. Completely off topic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I really hope Tim's middle initial is an E.

  8. Re:Any details on the camera? by augahyde · · Score: 1

    http://edgertronic.com/camera/...

  9. Re:Flash, again? by Blaskowicz · · Score: 2

    I happen to like flash technology. Hell, it's less CPU intensive than html5 + javascript crap or maybe that's because it supports a video codec much less CPU hungry than H264. Used as in the Pentium 1 and Cyrix days it's also a very good platorm for animated and optionally interactive vector graphics (similar to the good old Another World/Out of this World game). Animated PNG and animated SVG were a failure I think.

    Open source / Free software world failed to make a good enough clone, except as a toy project to run antique flash objects stored in off-line folders.
    It could have worked out better. Hell, a decade ago slashdot was littered with "warning! pdf link" and "pdf is evil".

  10. High speed video? by Trogre · · Score: 1

    Hell, I'd settle for standard 60fps over the crappy juddery 30fps all the consumer cameras seem to have today.

    You know, like we had ten years ago but with higher resolution and not interlaced.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  11. Like you could tell the difference between 60fps by ayesnymous · · Score: 3, Funny

    and 700-18000 fps. Plus some people even get motion sickness from 120 Hz TVs. Wonder how they'd fare watching a 700 fps video?

  12. Re:Like you could tell the difference between 60fp by PhunkySchtuff · · Score: 2

    Can't tell if serious or trolling.

    These cameras are used for slowing things down. You shoot at, say, 600 frames per second and then you can slow it down by 20 times to 30 fps. Watching the video at 30 fps then shows a very smooth slow-motion view of what's happening 20 times faster. One of the examples he gave was in process manufacturing - if you have an assembly line that's jamming at a point, and you can't see why as it's all happening too quickly, shoot it at a high frame rate, slow it down and go over it frame by frame if you need to. Either that or make videos of stuff breaking, getting shot or having water splashed on it and put it on youtube. People love seeing that stuff in slow motion.

    --
    Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
  13. He is not in sales by kqc7011 · · Score: 1

    You can tell that he is not is sales as his finger covered the name on the camera. If he would have moved his fingers the name would have been visible to everyone viewing the video. Even the newest "booth babes" know how to present. Still a neat camera though.

    --
    Passionately Indifferent
    1. Re:He is not in sales by Dishevel · · Score: 1

      Well luckily he does have some skills and ambition and does not have to count on his income from his "both babe" duties. Let the no talent pseudo whores do what they are good at.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  14. We shot a high-speed video version ... by timothy · · Score: 1

    But it took 27 hours to play back ;)

    However, you can see a few examples of what it can shoot here:

    http://edgertronic.com/videos/

    The highest-speed (shootgun firing) is the lowest resoluton, because that's the trade-off. I am a sucker balloons-hit-sharp-objects videos, though, so I like the cactus one best.

    Tim

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  15. Re:Call me Robert by timothy · · Score: 1

    Says Wikipedia:

    "The title Esquire is not allocated by the law of any state to any profession, class, or station in society. Because it is commonly employed by lawyers, however, use by an unlicensed person may be evidence of the unauthorized practice of law, which can subject a person to sanctions by a state bar association and is a crime in all fifty states. The concern is that by appending "Esq." to his or her name, a person may create a false perception of acting in the capacity of a lawyer, which might induce a layman to consider the person to be an attorney and to create an attorney-client relationship."

    So, I shouldn't use Esq -- no bar exam, am nobody's attorney. But since it's a Juris Doctor, I guess could say Dr, if you want, and throw in the Mr, too, for fun ... Sure, why not?

    My German's not good enough to try for Doktor Doktor, though.

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  16. Re:I liked the presentation. by timothy · · Score: 1

    And as the creator! :) As someone said above, No, he's not in sales, except enough to demo the camera.

    Had a really ineresting talk with him afterward, too, over sandwiches, about optics, refresh rates, human eye / brain interactions, etc. I also think that "Matter" is a pretty cool last name to have at a conference called "Solid."

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  17. How could you submit a story like this by PJ6 · · Score: 1

    with video and not include an example of the camera's output?

    Seriously, was it just too difficult?

    Maybe I'm just in a bad mood, but it pissed me off that the whole video was just some dude talking.

    If you're going to be that lazy just give us a transcript.