FRAME: If we told you that high-speed cameras that collect 100.000 images per second are obsolete technology;
A research team στο Πανεπιστήμιο Lund της Σουηδίας έχει αναπτύξει μια φωτογραφική μηχανή που μπορεί τραβάει φωτογραφίες με ταχύτητα πέντε τρισεκατομμύρια εικόνες ανά δευτερόλεπτο, ή ένα καρέ ανά 0,2 τρισεκατομμύρια του δευτερολέπτου.
The new camera will be able to record incredibly fast procedures that are going on in various research laboratories in chemistry, physics, biology, and biomedicine, which have so far not been shot on film.
In order to present the new FRAME technology, researchers successfully filmed how the light travels (a group of photons) at a distance corresponding to the thickness of a paper.
Until now, high-speed cameras recorded images one by one in a sequence. The new technology uses an innovative algorithm that captures multiple coded images into one image. It then sorts them into a sequence video.
The camera is intended to be used initially by researchers who want to get a better picture of the many extremely fast processes that occur in nature. According to the researchers: "in the long run, the technology can be used by industry and others."
For the researchers themselves, the greatest benefit of this technology is not that they have managed to break a new record of speed but that they are capable of filming how to change specific substances in the same process.
"Today, the only way to capture such rapid events is to capture still images of a process. Next, you should try to repeat the same experiments to get enough still images that can later be edited into a movie. "The problem with this approach is that it is very unlikely that the process will be the same if you repeat the experiment," said researchers Elias Kristensson and Andreas Ehn.
Researchers call the new technology FRAME - Frequency Recognition Algorithm for Multiple Exposures.
A normal flash camera uses normal light, but in this case the researchers use "coded" flashes of light, as a form of encryption. Whenever a coded flash (light) hits the object – for example, a chemical reaction in a combustion flame – the object emits an image signal (response) with exactly the same code. So each movement has different codes and the image signals are recorded in only one photo. These coded image signals are then separated using an encryption key by some computer.
A German company has already developed a prototype of this technology, which means that over two years it will be used by more scientists.
FRAME - Frequency Recognition Algorithm for Multiple Exposures PDF
Contact:
Elias Kristensson, combustion physics researcher, + 46 46 222 47 56, 46 73 369, elias.kristensson@forbrf.lth.se
Andreas Ehn, combustion physics researcher, + 46 46 222 39 28, andreas.ehn@forbrf.lth.se