MIT-developed laser camera can take pictures around corners

No matter how many megapixels they might have, modern cameras have one fatal flaw — they can't take pictures around corners. Thankfully, Ramesh Raskar and his team at MIT's Media Lab are building something that can do just that. The team has developed a camera that uses lasers to gather images of objects hidden behind walls, which it can then use to construct a 3D model.

The camera starts out by bouncing a laser impulse off of a visible wall so that its scattered photons reach the hidden object obscured behind other walls. It then records the time it takes the photons to come back to it, and this process is repeated 60 times with each laser fired at a different position. An image is recorded each time and an algorithm is then used to turn the images into a 3D model of what's hidden — it's a process that Raskar describes as similar to what's used during CAT scans. Currently it takes a few minutes to generate the model, but the team is hoping to speed that up to around 10 seconds in the future.

While the laser camera might not replace your Cyber-shot anytime soon, the team sees it eventually being used to photograph dangerous and inaccessible areas, like the inside of a machine full of moving parts.

MIT 麻省理工學院的研究團隊，日前發明了一個特殊的雷射相機系統，就算你想盡辦法躲在牆壁或其他掩蔽物不被人發現也沒用，因為這個雷射相機照樣能繞過遮蔽物然後把你給拍下來。這玩意是怎麼辦到的？簡單來說就是先將雷射光打在一面牆上 (一發一發的打)，然後雷射光就會擴散成光子 (Photon) 並且反射到被拍攝的物體，接著特殊設計的相機就會接收這些被反射回來的光子，最後藉由光子反射的時間差，拼湊成一個立體的 3D 影像。

這個特殊的雷射相機系統目前還在實驗階段，不需要花上數分鐘才能處理完成一個 3D 圖象。日後若是能順利將建構 3D 圖像的時間縮短，則可望能用在醫療手術或是救災現場。以火災現場來說，消防員可透過此雷射相機系統，觀察建築物之內是否有人，或是確認待救援者的位置，可以確實提高救災的精準度和效率喔。

(來源:theverge,比價王)