Single pixel three dimensional imaging with time based depth resolution
Time of flight three dimensional imaging is an important tool for applications such as object recognition and remote sensing. Conventional time of flight three dimensional imaging systems frequently use a raster scanned laser to measure the range of each pixel in the scene sequentially. Here we show a modified time of flight three dimensional imaging system, which can use compressed sensing techniques to reduce acquisition times, whilst distributing the optical illumination over the full field of view. Our system is based on a single pixel camera using short pulsed structured illumination and a high speed photodiode, and is capable of reconstructing 128 x 128 pixel resolution three dimensional scenes to an accuracy of ~3 mm at a range of ~5 m. Furthermore, by using a compressive sampling strategy, we demonstrate continuous real time three dimensional video with a frame rate up to 12 Hz. The simplicity of the system hardware could enable low cost three dimensional imaging devices for precision ranging at wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum.
Nature communications