PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Team develops faster, higher quality 3-D camera

Inspired by the Microsoft Kinect, the camera can be used in more environments and produces better images

2015-04-24
(Press-News.org) When Microsoft released the Kinect for Xbox in November 2010, it transformed the video game industry. The most inexpensive 3-D camera to date, the Kinect bypassed the need for joysticks and controllers by sensing the user's gestures, leading to a feeling of total immersion into the game. Microsoft sold 8 million Kinect units within 60 days, making it the fastest-selling electronic device ever.

"But then something interesting happened," said Oliver Cossairt, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering. "Microsoft made the software available for the 3-D capture part of the device. People were able to integrate this inexpensive consumer device into a variety of platforms, including robotics and navigation."

But users quickly discovered the Kinect's limitations. It does not work outdoors, and it produces relatively low-quality images. Now, Cossairt's team has picked up where the Kinect left off and developed a 3-D capture camera that is inexpensive, produces high-quality images, and works in all environments -- including outdoors.

Supported by the Office of Naval Research and the US Department of Energy, the research is described in the paper "MC3D: Motion Contrast 3D Scanning," presented on April 24 at the IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography. Nathan Matsuda, a graduate student in Cossairt's lab, is first author, and Mohit Gupta from Columbia University is co-author and collaborator.

Both first and second generation Kinect devices work by projecting light patterns that are then sensed and processed to estimate scene depth at each pixel on the sensor. Although these techniques work quickly, they are less precise than expensive single-point scanners, which use a laser to scan points across an entire scene or object. Cossairt's camera uses single-point scanning in a different way. Modeled after the human eye, it only scans parts of the scenes that have changed, making it much faster and higher quality.

"If you send the same signal to your eye over and over, the neurons will actually stop firing," Cossairt said. "The neurons only fire if there is a change in your visual stimulus. We realized this principle could be really useful for a 3-D scanning system."

Another problem that plagues the Kinect: it does not work well outside because the sunlight overpowers its projected light patterns. The laser on Cossairt's camera, however, can be sensed in the presence of the sun because it is much brighter than ambient light.

"In order for a 3-D camera to be useful, it has to be something you can use in everyday, normal environments," Cossairt said. "Outdoors is a part of that, and that's something the Kinect cannot do, but our Motion Contrast 3-D scanner can."

Cossairt believes his camera has many applications for devices in science and industry that rely on capturing the 3-D shapes of scenes "in the wild," such as in robotics, bioinformatics, augmented reality, and manufacturing automation. It could potentially also be used for navigation purposes, install on anything from a car to a motorized wheelchair. Cossairt's group received a Google Faculty Research Award to integrate their 3-D scanning technology onto an autonomous vehicle platform. Their scanner will provide high-quality 3-D scans in real time without only a fraction of the power of competing technologies.

INFORMATION:



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Northwestern scientists develop first liquid nanolaser

2015-04-24
Northwestern University scientists have developed the first liquid nanoscale laser. And it's tunable in real time, meaning you can quickly and simply produce different colors, a unique and useful feature. The laser technology could lead to practical applications, such as a new form of a "lab on a chip" for medical diagnostics. To understand the concept, imagine a laser pointer whose color can be changed simply by changing the liquid inside it, instead of needing a different laser pointer for every desired color. In addition to changing color in real time, the liquid ...

FDG PET/CT not useful in staging newly diagnosed stage III invasive lobular breast cancer

2015-04-24
TORONTO, April 20, 2015-- Although National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines consider 18F-PET/CT (FDG PET/CT) appropriate for systemic staging of newly diagnosed stage III breast cancer, the technique may not be equally valuable for all breast cancer histologies. Researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center found that while FDG PET/CT is valuable for systemic staging of stage III ductal breast cancer, it adds little to the systemic staging of ILC. "We are evaluating patient and disease factors that affect the value of FDG PET/CT for systemic ...

Text messaging useful for reaching 'at-risk' teens about sex

2015-04-24
PULLMAN, Wash. - Text messaging that connects teens with sexual health educators is effective for delivering sexual health information, according to a recent study in The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. The research abstract is online and the work will appear in an upcoming print issue of the journal Health Education and Behavior. "What we found is that teens identified as 'at-risk' use this text messaging service at a higher rate that other teens," said Jessica Willoughby, lead investigator on the project and an assistant professor ...

Long lasting anti-hemophilia factor safe in kids

2015-04-24
Children with hemophilia A require three to four infusions each week to prevent bleeding episodes, chronic pain and joint damage. The effect on quality of life can be significant, due to time and discomfort associated with infusions. For these reasons, under dosing is common, leaving children at increased risk for bleeding episodes and even death. This extended half-life factor VIII enables patients to receive one or two infusions each week without an increased risk of bleeding. The first report on the safety and efficacy of this therapy in children under 12 years old ...

Breakthrough provides new hope for more effective treatments of HER2+ breast cancer

2015-04-24
Ahmad M. Khalil, PhD, knew the odds were against him -- as in thousands upon thousands to one. Yet he and his team never wavered from their quest to identify the parts of the body responsible for revving up one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer, HER2+. This month in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, Khalil and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University proved the power of persistence; from a pool of more than 30,000 possibilities, they found 38 genes and molecules that most likely trigger HER2+ cancer cells to spread. By narrowing what was once ...

Diffusion tensor MR tractography effective as quantitative tool, treatment marker response

2015-04-24
TORONTO, April 24, 2015-- Preliminary results of a study of patients with prostate cancer show that MR tractography may be a reliable quantitative imaging biomarker to assess prostate cancer treatment response to androgen deprivation and radiation therapy, according to a team of researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Quantitative evaluation shows higher tract densities after androgen deprivation and radiation therapy, reflecting gland shrinkage and subsequent fibrosis. Twenty-two patients with elevated prostate-specific ...

Dead feeder cells support stem cell growth

Dead feeder cells support stem cell growth
2015-04-24
Stem cells naturally cling to feeder cells as they grow in petri dishes. Scientists have thought for years that this attachment occurs because feeder cells serve as a support system, providing stems cells with essential nutrients. But a new study that successfully grew stem cells with dead, or fixed, feeder cells suggests otherwise. The discovery, described in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, challenges the theory that feeder cells provide nutrients to growing stem cells. It also means that the relationship between the two cells is superficial, according to ...

Aid workers should read through archaeologists' notebooks on building houses

2015-04-24
Aid workers who provide shelter following natural disasters, such as hurricanes or earthquakes, should consider long-term archaeological information about how locals constructed their homes in the past, and what they do when they repair and rebuild. Archaeologists and international humanitarian organizations are both involved in recovery, with the former doing this for the past, and the latter for the present. So says Alice Samson of the University of Cambridge in the UK, leader of an archaeological overview of building practices used in the Caribbean 1,400 to 450 years ...

Study sheds new light on brain's source of power

2015-04-24
New research published today in the journal Nature Communications represents a potentially fundamental shift in our understanding of how nerve cells in the brain generate the energy needed to function. The study shows neurons are more independent than previously believed and this research has implications for a range of neurological disorders. "These findings suggest that we need to rethink the way we look at brain metabolism," said Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., co-director of the University of Rochester Center for Translational Neuromedicine and lead author of ...

Delayed diagnosis of celiac disease may put lives at risk: Is screening the solution?

2015-04-24
(April 15th, 2015) Coeliac disease is one of the most common life-long conditions in Europe, yet many people remain undiagnosed and lengthy diagnostic delays may be putting lives at risk. Today, doctors are being urged to consider testing for Coeliac disease in anyone showing signs and symptoms of the condition and to consider screening everyone in high-risk groups. A paper published in this month's special Coeliac disease (CD) issue of the UEG Journal assessed the viability of screening for CD in the general population and concluded that screening of first-degree relatives ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Engineers uncover why tiny particles form clusters in turbulent air

GLP-1RA drugs dramatically reduce death and cardiovascular risk in psoriasis patients

Psoriasis linked to increased risk of vision-threatening eye disease, study finds

Reprogramming obesity: New drug from Italian biotech aims to treat the underlying causes of obesity

Type 2 diabetes may accelerate development of multiple chronic diseases, particularly in the early stages, UK Biobank study suggests

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the Middle East were committed to wine production

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago

Temporary medical centers in Gaza known as "Medical Points" (MPs) treat an average of 117 people daily with only about 7 staff per MP

Rates of alcohol-induced deaths among the general population nearly doubled from 1999 to 2024

PLOS One study: In adolescent lab animals exposed to cocaine, High-Intensity Interval Training boosts aversion to the drug

Scientists identify four ways our bodies respond to COVID-19 vaccines

Stronger together: A new fusion protein boosts cancer immunotherapy

Hidden brain waves as triggers for post-seizure wandering

Music training can help the brain focus

Researcher develop the first hydride ion prototype battery

[Press-News.org] Team develops faster, higher quality 3-D camera
Inspired by the Microsoft Kinect, the camera can be used in more environments and produces better images