Imaging

NASA has released a new image providing photographic evidence of Boom Supersonic's XB-1 prototype aircraft breaking the sound barrier. Captured on the second supersonic flight, it used a special imaging technique to record the historic event.

Apple's Machine Learning Research wing has developed a foundational AI model "for zero-shot metric monocular depth estimation." Depth Pro enables high-speed generation of detailed 3D depth maps from a single two-dimensional image.

From a baby tardigrade riding a nematode, to water droplets evaporating from the wing scales of a peacock butterfly, the winners of this year's Nikon Small World In Motion video microscopy competition let you see the unseen in astounding detail.

If a robot is going to be grasping delicate objects, then that bot had better know what those objects are, so it can treat them accordingly. A new robotic hand allows it to do so, by sensing the shape of the object along the length of its digits.

In order to see how well a corn plant is performing photosynthesis, you need to check the angle of its leaves relative to its stem. And while scientists ordinarily have to do so with a protractor, a new robotic system can now do the job much quicker.

A team of engineers has developed a new type of camera that can detect radiation in terahertz wavelengths. This new imaging system can see through certain materials in high detail, which could make it useful for security scanners and other sensors.

X-ray vision has long been a superpower, but soon mere mortals could see hidden objects with help from AI. A new “ghost imaging” system reads the brainwaves of a person looking at light scattered off a wall to identify an object around a corner.

German engineer Gaurav Singh has designed and built an industrial USB box camera in a custom 3D-printed case that not only accepts interchangeable lenses, but the image sensor can also be swapped out as needed.

A new type of radar can measure objects down to centimeters. The new technique uses a photonic system to generate much higher bandwidth signals, enabling radar that can detect smaller objects, and even monitor patient vital signs in hospitals.

Princeton and the University of Washington researchers have developed a camera the size of a grain of salt that can snap sharp, full-color images. It’s made with a metasurface that captures light and could be scaled up to turn entire surfaces into sensors.

Blind corners have long troubled drivers, but researchers have now developed a holographic camera technology that can peer around corners by reconstructing scattered light waves, quickly enough to spot fast-moving objects like cars or pedestrians.

DARPA's new Fast Event-based Neuromorphic Camera and Electronics (FENCE) program will seek to make computer vision cameras more efficient by mimicking how the human brain processes information.