Title: High-resolution, superfast 3D imaging and applications
Speaker: Song Zhang, William and Virginia Binger Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University
Abstract: High-resolution 3D video imaging is increasingly important to both academia and industry, with broad applications including medicine, homeland security, and entertainment. In recent years, we have made some progress, and developed an unprecedented 60 Hz rate 3D imaging system with a digital fringe projection and phase-shifting method. However, a hardware bottleneck was met to further improve its speed. Recently, we have been studying a new method that could eliminate this speed bottleneck. This technique is essentially to generate sinusoidal fringe patterns by properly defocusing binary ones. It coincides with the operation mechanism of the digital-light-processing (DLP) technology, and thus permits some speed breakthroughs. This talk discusses some of our recent studies: (1) realizing simultaneous 60 Hz 3D imaging at over 300,000 points per frame; (2) achieving kHz rate 3D imaging for capturing extremely rapidly changing scenes; (3) compressing 3D videos into 2D videos with very high compression ratios whilst achieving superior quality; and (4) applying those technologies for 3D telepresence that could transform the communication field. In addition, I will briefly explain some of applications that we are currently exploring.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Song Zhang is the William and Virginia Binger Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from Stony Brook University in 2005; and spent three years at Harvard before joining ISU in 2008. Dr. Zhang has published over 60 journal articles; co-authored 6 book chapters; edited one book; and filed 8 patent applications with one patent being granted. 8 of his journal articles were featured on the covers and two others were highlighted by the corresponding societies. His work has won the AIAA Best Paper Award and the Best of SIGGRAPH. Dr. Zhang is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2012.