Event-based Cam Eye

Sanchit Gupta
Sep 7, 2018 · 4 min read

From its very inception around a century ago, video cameras have had the same concept, they capture still images multiple times in a second and play it very fast to emulate motion.

Am I a camera or an eye?

We have often correlated our own vision with that of the camera and with improving technology this illusion of vision has become more convincing. Cameras now seem to capture almost what our eyes see and are becoming better with each passing day.

The better quality images and motion capture comes with its own cost, these cameras now need more processing powers with multi-core processors and GPU’s (Graphics Processing Unit).

They consume more energy and need more space to store the recorded video. With these increasing requirements and still failing to capture exactly as our eyes see, we tend to question something. Do our eyes and brain also allocate a tremendous amount of time and energy in processing vision, because mind you, we are always in the recording mode.

The answer to the above question is a very strange one:

see where I see

Our eyes function completely different than today’s cameras

Our eyes do not take multiple snapshots of the environment, nor does it lose the information between the frames like a camera. Our eyes have evolved through millions of years to have a vision which not only takes these snapshots but can also detect specific changes in the environment.

the information is lost between the frames on the left whereas complete motion can be seen on the right

There is always an input stream of photon data (intensity) coming to the eye, but the eye only processes the change in the intensity of the photons and not the whole image. When nothing changes the cells do not process anything and this reduces redundancy. This also means that the amount of data it is processing is more than a thousand times smaller than that of the video camera and it still doesn’t lose the required information between frames. This type of vision is called Event-Based vision.

Event-Based Vision: Simply put it is individual and independent receptors collecting only the essential information in a dynamic environment.

As I have stated before, Nature is our best teacher and I guess now is the time we took inspiration from it for our cameras too. Taking the event-based vision from our eyes we have started developing event-based cameras.

Event Cameras: They are bio-inspired vision sensors that naturally capture the dynamics of a scene, filtering out redundant information

These cameras only detect the change in the photons and give that as an output. When nothing changes they give no output at all. This gives us all the information we need in a dynamic environment, like when we are tracking an object in real time without having to process the background image every time and losing information in frames.

another example of a conventional camera vs an event-based one

Event cameras pose many advantages over the traditional cameras and when paired with the traditional ones, they seem to change the game altogether. Event cameras take less power to run, are faster in computation and give the complete information about the movement of the body which is not possible with the traditional cameras. As event cameras work with changes in the incoming intensity of the photons, they work even in low illumination areas, hence their application in self-driving cars is huge.

In conclusion, the event-based camera is going to change the camera industry has functioned so far, with better motion capture and less energy we are moving towards a brighter tomorrow.

I will soon have the vision

Rumour has it, Samsung is going to be using this technology in their new upcoming phone, I am really looking forward to it, are you?

Until then keep reading. Cheers!

Sanchit Gupta

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Solutions and Innovations

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