Scientists Build World's Fastest Camera 130
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers have developed a camera that snaps images less than a half a billionth of a second long and can capture over six million images in a second continuously. Dubbed Serial Time-Encoded Amplified imaging, or Steam, the technique depends on carefully manipulating so-called 'supercontinuum' laser pulses. While other cameras used in scientific research can capture shorter-lived images, they can only capture about eight images, and have to be triggered to do so for a given event. The Steam camera, by contrast, can capture images continuously, making it ideal for random events that cannot be triggered. Keisuke Gode, lead author of the study, and his colleagues used their camera to image minute spheres flowing along a thin tube of water in a microfluidic device." (More below.)
High Pickens continues: "Using the STEAM camera they were able to image the spheres at a frame rate of 6.1 megahertz — in other words, the camera took a picture once every 163 nanoseconds. The camera could be used for studies of combustion, laser cutting and any system that changes quickly and unpredictably. One important application would be analyzing flowing blood samples. Because the imaging of individual cells in a volume of blood is impossible for current cameras, a small random sample is taken and those few cells are imaged manually with a microscope. 'But, what if you needed to detect the presence of very rare cells that, although few in number, signify early stages of a disease?,' asks Gode, citing circulating tumor cells as a perfect example of such a target. The team is working to extend the technique to 3-D imaging with the same time resolution, and to increase the effective number of pixels in a given image from 2,500 to 100,000."
I can't wait! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Ok? (Score:4, Insightful)
And what kind of storage do you need for a study that takes days or weeks?
Re:Ok? (Score:2, Insightful)
You missed the fact that you're a fucking moron. What the FUCK are you doing on /. if you aren't impressed by useless cool gadgets and cant see what the uses of the useful cool gadgets are?
Re:Ok? (Score:3, Insightful)
it would also mean a sports replay that would last well into next year
Well, finally, a technical justification for how long sideline "instant" replay reviews [wikipedia.org] seem to take.
Re:Ok? (Score:2, Insightful)
What kind of processing power do you need to analyze six million frames per second in real time? (Honest question, I don't know, but I'd imagine it's just as ridiculous as the storage requirement raised by GP.)
I suppose you could analyze every nth frame, but if you're looking for events that occur on the microsecond scale, you run the risk of missing it entirely.