Screen grabs from video streams would be as clear as a high-resolution photograph with a new technology from
The technology, dubbed Fast Pixel Shutter Imaging (FPSI), would allow cameras to capture high-speed video and high-resolution still images simultaneously on the same detector without additional memory requirements.
Gil Bub, leader of the technology’s development team and a bio- technology researcher at
Bub said: ‘With traditional cameras you have a global shutter for the whole set of pixels. We’re going to have individual shutters to control when each pixel gets exposed.’
With a different exposure time set for each pixel, he said a camera taking a still photo could detect movement such as light turning on. The movement would be embedded as high-frequency information in the image. He added: ‘You could decode that and pull out an image sequence.’
Bub has demonstrated the technology using a prototype built out of a digital micro-mirror array comprising a vast amount of individually moveable mirrors measuring 10 microns across. He said: ‘The mirrors can be toggled on and off. I’m using them, in effect, as pixel-level optical switches.’
Bub is working with researchers at
Within six months they plan to unveil a mobile-phone-sized camera that can demonstrate FPSI and tap into an industry that was worth $3bn in 2007.
The technology is being commercialised through
Siobhan Wagner
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