First-Photon Imaging

Imagers that use their own illumination can capture 3D structure and reflectivity information. With photon-counting detectors, images can be acquired at extremely low photon fluxes. To suppress the Poisson noise inherent in low-flux operation, such imagers typically require hundreds of detected photons per pixel for accurate range and reflectivity determination. We introduce a low-flux imaging technique, called first-photon imaging, which is a computational imager that exploits spatial correlations found in real-world scenes and the physics of low-flux measurements. Our technique recovers 3D structure and reflectivity from the first detected photon at each pixel. We demonstrate simultaneous acquisition of sub-pulse duration range and 4-bit reflectivity information in the presence of high background noise. First-photon imaging may be of considerable value to both microscopy and remote sensing.

Publications

• First-Photon Imaging
  A. Kirmani, D. Venkatraman, D. Shin, A. Colaço, F. N. C. Wong, J. H. Shapiro, and V. K. Goyal, Science, vol. 343, no. 6166, pp. 58-61, 3 Jan 2014.
  
• This Week in Science: Computing an Image
  Editors' commentary, Science, vol. 343, no. 6166, pp. 5, 3 Jan 2014.
  

Code and data

• zip file here
  

Press coverage

• Nature News, Stealth camera takes pictures virtually in the dark, Ron Cowen, November 28, 2013.
• BBC News, Camera takes 3D photos in the dark, December 2, 2013.
• CERN Courier, First-photon imaging, John Swain, February 24, 2014.
• DefenseTech, MIT System Captures 3D Images from the Darkness, Bryant Jorday, December 2, 2013.
• Design News, 3D Scanners Capture Clear Images in Darkness, Cabe Atwell, January 2, 2014.
• The Epoch Times, New Camera Uses Just 1 Photon per Pixel, August 23, 2016.
• KBS (Korean Broadcasting System, in Korean), Clearly photograph `objects in the dark' with a 3D camera, December 3, 2013.
• Phys.org, Researchers generate 3D images using just one photon per pixel, Lisa Zyga, July 13, 2016.
• BU Engineering, Imaging Method Promises to Upgrade Remote Sensing and Microscopy, Mark Dwortzan, January 27, 2014.
• BU Engineering, A Point of Light, Sara Elizabeth Cody, July 7, 2016.
• MIT News, 3-D images, with only one photon per pixel: New scheme could enable laser rangefinders to infer depth from a hundredth as much light – and to produce images from only one nine-hundredth the light, Larry Hardesty, November 28, 2013.
• Additional commentary online at many sites including: Gizmodo, Mashable, Nuit Blanche.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency InPho program through U.S. Army Research Office award W911NF-10-1-0404, the U.S. NSF under grant number 1161413, a Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship, a Samsung Scholarship, and a Microsoft Ph.D. Fellowship. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.