Ultrafast light field tomography for snapshot transient and non-line-of-sight imaging

Cameras with extreme speeds are enabling technologies in both fundamental and applied sciences. However, existing ultrafast cameras are incapable of coping with extended three-dimensional scenes and fall short for non-line-of-sight imaging, which requires a long sequence of time-resolved two-dimensional data. Current non-line-of-sight imagers, therefore, need to perform extensive scanning in the spatial and/or temporal dimension, restricting their use in imaging only static or slowly moving objects. To address these long-standing challenges, we present here ultrafast light field tomography (LIFT), a transient imaging strategy that offers a temporal sequence of over 1000 and enables highly efficient light field acquisition, allowing snapshot acquisition of the complete four-dimensional space and time. With LIFT, we demonstrated three-dimensional imaging of light in flight phenomena with a <10 picoseconds resolution and non-line-of-sight imaging at a 30 Hz video-rate. Furthermore, we showed how LIFT can benefit from deep learning for an improved and accelerated image formation. LIFT may facilitate broad adoption of time-resolved methods in various disciplines. Speed and 3D capability are often incompatible for non-line-of-sight imaging. Here, the authors introduce ultrafast light field tomography (LIFT) that uses an efficient light field acquisition technique to obtain 3D and time.

Automated summary

LIFT is a novel transient imaging strategy that provides a temporal sequence of over 1000 and efficient light field acquisition for four-dimensional imaging. It enables three-dimensional imaging of light in flight phenomena with a resolution of less than 10 picoseconds, and non-line-of-sight imaging at a video rate of 30 Hz.