Why can we see what our cameras can’t?
Video cameras learn from insect eyes
Monday 28 August 2006
The bane of all wedding videos—that picture of the bride in front of the
window where her face so dark that you can’t see the features—may soon be a
thing of the past.
By mimicking how insects see, an Adelaide
researcher can now produce digital videos in which you can see every detail. The
technique solves a critical problem for surveillance cameras, where the clarity
of images is everything.
“When it comes to seeing,” says Dr Russell Brinkworth, a post doctoral
research fellow at the University of Adelaide, “even a tiny insect brain can
outperform any current artificial system. As we can, they can see detail in
light and dark at the same time.”
Traditional cameras use a single average light setting to control the
brightness of an image. This is fine, says Dr Brinkworth, if there are similar
levels of lighting over your whole scene. But it’s not so good if some parts are
much brighter than others.
“In nature, the individual cells of the eye adjust to a part of the image
independently in order to capture the maximum amount of information about the
scene. This means that even in difficult lighting conditions, such as a person
standing in front of a window, you can see both the person’s face and the
scenery outside at the same time, something a traditional camera cannot do.”
By recording from cells in the brains of insects Dr Brinkworth and his
colleagues have shown it is possible to determine exactly how animal eyes work,
and to reproduce the process using computer software and hardware.
“It’s a fundamentally new way of thinking about vision technology,” he says.
“Our, and insect eyes are designed to detect movement. In fact we can’t actually
see anything that’s stationary relative to our eyes. The image in our mind is
created by movement – the movement of our bodies, flickering of our eyes.
By learning from the insect world we will be able to create video cameras
that can: resolve detail in light and dark; detect moving objects; rapidly
compress and transmit video at incredible speed; and detect and measure the
speed of very small objects moving in the distance.
Dr Brinkworth’s software can already enhance existing video footage.
“What we want to do,” he says, “is to wire this into existing camera sensor
technology – our software would be written to a computer chip that would sit
between the sensor and the digital converter.”
He is keeping the specifics of the technology close to his chest until a
commercial partner is signed up. But the team has already received support from
the United States Air Force.
Russell Brinkworth is one of 16 Fresh
Scientists who are presenting their research to school students and the general
public for the first time thanks to Fresh Science, a national program hosted by
the Melbourne Museum and sponsored by the Federal and Victorian governments, New Scientist,
The Australian and Quantum Communications Victoria. One of the Fresh Scientists will win a trip
to the UK courtesy of the British Council to present his or her work to the
Royal Institution.
IMAGES: Russell has short videos demonstrating the difference his
technology makes.
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