Trillion Frames per Second Light Transport Visualization

Material

back to the main project page

Pictures and Videos

Pictures

Videos

A laser pulse moving through a bottle

Pulse moving through
a bottle. Color encodes
time. Background image added.
Pulse moving through
a bottle. Background image added.
Photo of the bottle
taken by a regular camera
 




bottle.mov 
bottle.mp4 The movie with background image.
bottlefast.mov
bottlefast.mp4 The movie with background image at a higher frame rate.
bottle_long.mp4 Composition of movies and pictures of the scene. This
video includes the black and white raw data. Also available on youtube.

A fruit illuminated by a pulsed light source

Pulsed illumination
of a fruit. Background image added.
Pulsed illumination of a fruit. Color encodes time. Raw data.


Pulsed illumination
of a fruit. Background image added.
Photo of the fruit taken by a regular camera.
Photo of the fruit computed from data taken by the fast camera.
 



fruit.mov
fruit.mp4 The movie with background image.
fruit_fast.mov
fruit_fast.mp4 The movie with background image at a higher frame rate.
fruit_long.mp4 Composition of movies and pictures of the scene. This
video includes the black and white raw data. Also available on youtube.

A roll of tape and a fruit Illuminated by a pulsed light source

Pulsed illumination
of the scene. Color encodes time. Background image added.
Pulsed illumination
of the scene. Background image added.


Photo of the scene taken by a regular camera.
 





fruittape.mov 
fruittape.mp4 The movie with background image.
fruittape_animation.avi A computer animation to illustrate the laser path.
fruittape_fast.mov
fruittape_fast.mp4 The movie with background image at a higher frame 
rate.
fruittape_long.mp4 Composition of movies and pictures of the scene. This
video includes the black and white raw data. Also available on
youtube
fruittape_long2.mp4 Composition of movies and pictures of the scene. This
video includes the black and white raw data and the illustration video. Also
available on youtube

A collection of scenes including:
A toy in front of a mirror,
a piece of rock candy,
an orange (hit from the back),
the corner of 3 walls,
a small cup and some grapes,
a grating under water.
 





multiple_scenes.mp4 This video is also available on youtube.

Other Pictures and Videos


Photo of the camera and a scene
Photo of the camera and a scene
 
streak_animation.avi

Team


Ramesh Raskar (left)
and Andreas Velten, Photo by Everett Lawson
Andreas Velten (left)
and Ramesh Raskar, Photo by Everett Lawson

(from left to right)
Matthew O'Toole,
Belen Masia, Di Wu,
and Andreas Velten
(from left to right)
Amy Fritz, Di Wu,
Belen Masia,
Matthew O'Toole,
and Andreas Velten

Press Coverage


 Trillion-frame-per-second video

Capturing video at the speed of light - one trillion frames per second 		MIT News (with video)

Speed of Light Lingers in Face of New Camera The New York Times

The World’s Fastest Camera
 ABC Nightline (with video)

MIT's trillion frames per second light-tracking camera BBC

Camera captures light particles moving through space msnbc

Camera captures one trillion frames per second CBS News (with video)

MIT Researchers Capture the Speed of Light on Camera TIME (with video)

Trillion FPS Camera Captures Advancing Light Waves Wired (with video)

MIT camera system captures speed of light CNN Blog (with video)

The camera that can capture 1 trillion frames a second - fast enough for slow-motion video of light particles Daily Mail

Ultrafast imaging system: Speed of light lingers in face of new camera The Economic Times (with video)

New MIT video camera shoots a trillion frames per second Discovery News (with video)

Video: A Trillion-Frame-Per-Second Camera Captures Individual Photons Moving Through Space Popular Science (with video)

Ultrafast Camera Records at Speed of Light Scientific American Blog (with video)

Trillion-Frame-Per-Second Video: Researchers Have Created an Imaging System That Makes Light Look Slow Science Daily (with video)

MIT builds camera that can capture at the speed of light Engadget (with video)

MIT's Light Speed Camera Snaps a Trillion Frames per Second PC World (with video)

MIT slows down light with trillion-frames-per-second video camera Extreme Tech (with video)

Unbelievable Trillion Frames Per Second Camera Captures Light in Motion Gizmodo (with video)

MIT camera boasts trillion frame per second video PC Pro

MIT Camera Captures a Trillion Frames Per Second gather

Experimental video camera captures a trillion frames per second The Verge

Fancy shooting a trillion frames per second? Ubergozmo

This Camera Tracks Photons At A Trillion Frames Per Second WebProNews

MIT camera photographs light at a trillion frames per second Slashgear (with video)

Watch light particles crawl through a Coke bottle at a trillion frames per second io9 (with video)

New MIT video camera shoots a trillion frames per second gizmag (with video)

Researchers at MIT Create a Camera That Can Shoot One Trillion Frames Per Second BostInno (with video)

MIT Camera Can Record Laser Beams at One Trillion FPS Popular Photography Magazine (with video)

MIT Researchers Create Camera That Captures Speed of Light Television Broadcast (with video)

Trillon fps camera fast enough to film photons TG Daily (with video)

Trillion fps camera shoots advancing light waves ZME science (with video)

Experimental camera records light in slow motion Boing Boing (with video)

MIT develops ultra-fast camera that captures the motion of light Tech Spot (with video)

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet: Photon Camera Sky News (with video)

Super Speed Camera Makes Light Look Slow Overclockers Club (with video)

Amazing MIT camera captures film at the speed of light Tecca (with video)

This Camera Captures the Speed of Light The Atlantic Wire (with video)

'World's Slowest Fastest Camera' Captures The Movement Of Light NPR Blog (with video)

MIT Builds World's Fastest Slowest Camera. Umm..What? Crazy Engineers (with video)

MIT Researches Create A Camera That Makes Light Look Slow Geeky Gadgets (with video)

Researchers Create Imaging System That Captures Light, Snapping Pictures In Two-Trillionths Of A Second Complex (with video)

Camera system catches speed of light KFWB (with video)

MIT builds camera that capture the speed of light in slow motion InRumor (with video)

FAQ

Can you capture a bullet or an explosion at a trillion frames per second?

What we see in the movies is actually an average of many light pulses. From just a single event we can't capture a movie. We need a repetitive event.

To capture anything except the light moving we would have to make it perform the exact same motion many times over. But there is a more important reason that rules out capturing moving objetcs: If we could create a piece of material that actually oscillates at 75 MHz with a centimeter amplitude we could capture a movie of it. But we would create large chunks of matter moving at relativistic speeds. In other words: A piece of matter large enough to be seen in the scene, and fast enough to appear moving to the camera would have much more destructive force that any bullet.

So are you just using the laser as a fast strobe light?

Strobing is an important component of the imaging process. But strobing alone could not get us to our time resolution. Detecting incoherent light at 2 ps time resolution requires a streak camera and the stitching process we have added. The strobing approach (as it is done in coherent LiDAR) works well for coherent light, but not all the light coming from the scene is still coherent with the original pulse.

So can you actually see single photons?

The camera is sensitive enough to detect the impact of a single photon. However, if we actually did the experiment with just one single photon, or with a very small amount of photons we could not get a complete picture of the light interaction with the scene. This is because we only see those photons that actually leave the scene and end up at the camera.

Our method of tracing light through the scene is based on the fact that the pulse contains many photons and that in every part of its interaction with the scene a small portion of the photons is scattered towards the camera. These are the photons we detect. And they allow us to make conclusions about the photons that actually where traveling through the scene. Scattering processes that make the light visible in this way occur weakly in air because of immersed particles, but we use the stronger effect of scattering in water in our videos. An interesting (but rather philosophical) question would be if, at some intensity photons would also scatter off vacuum fluctuations and become visible in a perfect vacuum.

So what about single photons?

Even if we sent single photons into the scene, the wave function of the photon would undergo the described partial scattering and carry all the information about the scene to the detector until it is actually detected (or absorbed somewhere else). Then most of that information is lost. So even doing the experiment repeatedly with single photons would reveal the photons paths.

But we do need enough photons to actually encode the information we are looking for (i. e. an entire detailed movie). Since one photon, when measured collapses to just one light path we do need many photons to trace their paths. Doing this experiment with single photons is of course highly hypothetical in this context.