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Revealing hidden scenes by photon-efficient occlusion-based opportunistic active imaging
The ability to see around corners, i.e., recover details of a hidden scene
from its reflections in the surrounding environment, is of considerable
interest in a wide range of applications. However, the diffuse nature of light
reflected from typical surfaces leads to mixing of spatial information in the
collected light, precluding useful scene reconstruction. Here, we employ a
computational imaging technique that opportunistically exploits the presence of
occluding objects, which obstruct probe-light propagation in the hidden scene,
to undo the mixing and greatly improve scene recovery. Importantly, our
technique obviates the need for the ultrafast time-of-flight measurements
employed by most previous approaches to hidden-scene imaging. Moreover, it does
so in a photon-efficient manner based on an accurate forward model and a
computational algorithm that, together, respect the physics of three-bounce
light propagation and single-photon detection. Using our methodology, we
demonstrate reconstruction of hidden-surface reflectivity patterns in a
meter-scale environment from non-time-resolved measurements. Ultimately, our
technique represents an instance of a rich and promising new imaging modality
with important potential implications for imaging science.Comment: Related theory in arXiv:1711.0629
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