Imagine: Let there be light

I watched a program 'Image: Let there be light' on BBC 1 last night. This is the most beautiful and intriguing program I've seen in the last few years. The man has a journey from U.K to U.S, from London to the dessert in Arizona. What he is chasing is the inspiration of light. He visit a few artists and designers using light as tool to decorate and explore the visulised illusions. It is very interesting to see how people of all ages keep their curiocities to light as children and how they pratice to see, touch and imagine the possibilities of light. Color, shape, movement and spectrum, all possible elements of light were used by these people to create a imaginary world. At the end of the program, a old American designer show the producer a extraordinary project he made in the dessert of Arizona. He built something like a observatory to watch the color and change of shape of the sky. Blue sky and white clouds, those most ordinary things form incredible pictures when you lie there and watch them peacefully.

To me, light is what I am working with. There could be lots of ideas about light which can help us to see more on the world we live in and on ourself which we live for.

3D Camera

I recently found out on the internet there are quite a few of 3D camera, which is known as All-Solid-State 3D camera based on the principle of Time-of-Flight(TOF). Below is some basic concept I found from the website of a swiss company CSEM. New information is coming up:

The camera emits an RF modulated optical radiation field (typically 20 MHz or higher) in the infra-red spectrum. This signal is diffusely backscattered by the scene and detected by the camera. Every pixel is able to demodulate the signal and detect its phase, which is proportional to the distance of the reflecting object. The pixel is also referred to as a "lock-in pixel", since it also determines modulation amplitude and offset of the signal allowing the camera to generate a gray-scale image of the scene.

Modulated input signal: phase, amplitude and offset.

The project with CEDES has been awarded with the european IST prize.

Further information on the camera specifications as well as technical background can be found at www.mesa-imaging.ch. MESA Imaging AG was founded in July 2006 to commercialize the world-leading 3D Time-of-Flight depth mapping technology developed by CSEM.

(from: http://www.csem.ch/detailed/p_531_3d_cam.htm)

read more:
http://www.mesa-imaging.ch/index.php