Monday, May 10, 2010

3D Scanning as Dense Microphone Array

Sound is the displacement of matter over time.

A microphone detects sound at a single point, either via direct physical coupling, or using optical methods (as with Laser microphones).

3D scanning can also detect displacement of reflective matter over time. Using a 3D scanning setup with a very large angle between the camera and projector, very minor displacement variations can be detected. Using a high framerate camera, this displacement can be measured at audio frequencies. Every pixel then corresponds to a virtual laser microphone: instead of the usual microphone at a point, a fringe analysis microphone is comprised of N points as determined by the camera resolution.

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Gaze-informed Perceptual Compression

A video chat program that tracks your eye movement and sends gaze information to the other user. The other user's computer compresses the entire image heavily, with the exception of what you're looking at. To you, it just looks like the entire image is clear.