Ideas worth spreading

A camera that can see around corners

378,002 views |

David Lindell |

TEDxBeaconStreet

• November 2019

To work safely, self-driving cars must avoid obstacles -- including those just out of sight. And for this to happen, we need technology that sees better than humans can, says electrical engineer David Lindell. Buckle up for a quick, groundbreaking tech demo as Lindell explains the significant and versatile potential of a high-speed camera that can detect objects hidden around corners.

To work safely, self-driving cars must avoid obstacles -- including those just out of sight. And for this to happen, we need technology that sees better than humans can, says electrical engineer David Lindell. Buckle up for a quick, groundbreaking tech demo as Lindell explains the significant and versatile potential of a high-speed camera that can detect objects hidden around corners.

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxBeaconStreet, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

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About the speaker

David Lindell

Electrical engineer

See speaker profile

David Lindell develops next-generation algorithms and systems for imaging the world in 3D.

David B. Lindell, Gordon Wetzstein and Matthew O'Toole | Stanford Computational Imaging Lab, 2019 | Article

"Wave-Based Non-Line-of-Sight Imaging using Fast f−k Migration"

A combination of more powerful hardware platforms and new reconstruction algorithms makes non-line-of-sight imaging more practical than before. This paper describes the first capture of large, complex hidden scenes outdoors and at interactive rates. The mathematical details behind the reconstruction algorithm described in this talk are also described.

Stanford Computational Imaging Lab | YouTube, 2019 | Watch

Wave-Based Non-Line-of-Sight Imaging using Fast f–k Migration | SIGGRAPH

This video provides additional technical details about the reconstruction algorithm described in the talk and shows additional results.

Matthew O'Toole, David B. Lindell and Gordon Wetzstein | Nature, 2018 | Article

"Confocal non-line-of-sight imaging based on the light-cone transform"

While previous approaches to seeing around corners using fast lasers and detectors required delicate, expensive equipment and hours of reconstruction time, breakthroughs described in this paper made seeing around corners compatible with existing commercial LiDAR systems and reduced computational requirements by orders of magnitude.

Ramesh Raskar | TEDGlobal, 2012 | Watch

"Imaging at a trillion frames per second"

In his TED talk, Ramesh Raskar describes a new imaging modality called Femtophotography. This powerful technique enables imaging at a trillion frames per second, allowing us to see the movement of light itself and even recover object shape from around a corner.

Andreas Velten, Thomas Willwacher, Otkrist Gupta, Ashok Veeraraghavan, Moungi G. Bawendi and Ramesh Raskar | Nature Communications, 2012 | Article

"Recovering three-dimensional shape around a corner using ultrafast time-of-flight imaging"

This seminal paper describes the technical details behind the first techniques for recovering 3D shape from around a corner (also shown in Ramesh Raskar’s TED talk).

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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxBeaconStreet, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.