The Taub Faculty of Computer Science Events and Talks

Conventional cameras record all light falling onto their sensor regardless of the path that light followed to get there. In this talk I will present an emerging family of video cameras that can be programmed to record just a fraction of the light coming from a controllable source, based on the actual 3D path followed. Live video from these cameras offers a very unconventional view of our everyday world in which refraction and scattering can be selectively blocked or enhanced, visual structures too subtle to notice with the naked eye can become apparent, and object appearance can depend on depth. I will discuss the unique optical properties and power efficiency of these "transport-aware" cameras, as well as their use for 3D shape acquisition, robust time-of-flight imaging, material analysis, and scene understanding. Last but not least, I will discuss their potential to become our field's "outdoor Kinect" sensor---able to operate robustly even in direct sunlight with very low power.