Abstract
Transient imaging is a technique in photography that records the process of light propagation before it reaches a stationary state such that events at the light speed level can be observed. In this review we introduce three main models for transient imaging with a time-of-flight (ToF) camera: correlation model, frequency-domain model, and compressive sensing model. Transient imaging applications usually involve resolving the problem of light transport and separating the light rays arriving along different paths. We discuss two of the applications: imaging objects inside scattering media and recovering both the shape and texture of an object around a corner.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bhandari, A., Raskar, R., 2016. Signal processing for time-offlight imaging sensors: an introduction to inverse problems in computational 3-D imaging. IEEE Signal Process. Mag., 33(5):45–58. https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2016.2582218
Bhandari, A., Feigin, M., Izadi, S., et al., 2014. Resolving multipath interference in Kinect: an inverse problem approach. Proc. IEEE Sensors, p.614–617. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSENS.2014.6985073
Heide, F., Hullin, M.B., Gregson, J., et al., 2013. Low-budget transient imaging using photonic mixer devices. ACM Trans. Graph., 32(4), Article 45. https://doi.org/10.1145/2461912.2461945
Heide, F., Xiao, L., Heidrich, W., et al., 2014. Diffuse mirrors: 3D reconstruction from diffuse indirect illumination using inexpensive time-of-flight sensors. Proc. IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, p.3222–3229. https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2014.418
Kadambi, A., Whyte, R., Bhandari, A., et al., 2013. Coded time of flight cameras: sparse deconvolution to address multipath interference and recover time profiles. ACM Trans. Graph., 32(6), Article 167. https://doi.org/10.1145/2508363.2508428
Kirmani, A., Hutchison, T., Davis, J., et al., 2009. Looking around the corner using transient imaging. Proc. IEEE 12th Int. Conf. on Computer Vision, p.159–166. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCV.2009.5459160
Lin, J.Y., Liu, Y.B., Hullin, M.B., et al., 2014. Fourier analysis on transient imaging with a multifrequency time-of-flight camera. Proc. IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, p.3230–3237. https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2014.419
Lin, J.Y., Liu, Y.B., Suo, J.L., et al., 2017. Frequency-domain transient imaging. IEEE Trans. Patt. Anal. Mach. Intell., 39(5):937–950. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPAMI.2016.2560814
Nishita, T., Miyawaki, Y., Nakamae, E., 1987. A shading model for atmospheric scattering considering luminous intensity distribution of light sources. ACM SIGGRAPH Comput. Graph., 21(4):303–310. https://doi.org/10.1145/37402.37437
Peters, C., Klein, J., Hullin, M.B., et al., 2015. Solving trigonometric moment problems for fast transient imaging. ACM Trans. Graph., 34(6), Article 220. https://doi.org/10.1145/2816795.2818103
Qiao, H., Lin, J.Y., Liu, Y.B., et al., 2015. Resolving transient time profile in ToF imaging via log-sum sparse regularization. Opt. Lett., 40(6):918–921. https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.40.000918
Shim, H., Lee, S., 2016. Recovering translucent objects using a single time-of-flight depth camera. IEEE Trans. Circ. Syst. Video Technol., 26(5):841–854. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSVT.2015.2397231
Tropp, J.A., Gilbert, A.C., 2007. Signal recovery from random measurements via orthogonal matching pursuit. IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, 53(12):4655–4666. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIT.2007.909108
Velten, A., Wu, D., Jarabo, A., et al., 2013. Femtophotography: capturing and visualizing the propagation of light. ACM Trans. Graph., 32(4), Article ai]44. https://doi.org/10.1145/2461912.2461928
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61561005 and 61531014), the National Key Foundation for Exploring Scientific Instrument (No. 2013YQ140517), and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province, China (No. 2015GXNSFAA139284)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lin, Jy., Wu, Rh., Wang, Hm. et al. Transient imaging with a time-of-flight camera and its applications. Frontiers Inf Technol Electronic Eng 18, 1268–1276 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1700556
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1700556