New Compressive Photography Technique for Capturing Ultrafast Events with Affordable Hardware

Published on January 08, 2026 | Translated from Spanish
Technical diagram showing a modified CMOS camera with a high-speed rotating mirror capturing multiple spatially encoded exposures in a single frame, with visualization of temporal reconstruction algorithms processing the data.

New Compressive Photography Technique to Capture Ultrafast Events with Affordable Hardware

The capture of ultrafast events has traditionally been the domain of expensive equipment, but researchers from the University of Quebec have broken this barrier with an innovative approach that combines accessible hardware and advanced computational processing. 🚀

Revolutionary Compressive Photography Technique

The system uses a standard modified CMOS camera along with a high-speed rotating mirror that directs light flashes to different zones of the sensor, capturing multiple exposures in a single frame. The temporal reconstruction algorithms process this superimposed data to recreate complete sequences of previously impossible-to-record phenomena.

Key System Components:
  • Modified CMOS camera for multi-encoded capture
  • High-speed rotating mirror to direct light
  • Specialized temporal reconstruction algorithms
This essentially tricks the camera into recording more information than it could physically capture in real time.

Practical Applications and Technological Democratization

This democratizing technology allows laboratories with limited budgets to study phenomena such as laser pulse propagation, plasma dynamics, or material microfissuring. The open-source software facilitates replication of the system with commercially available hardware.

Immediate Application Fields:
  • Study of light propagation in biological tissues
  • Analysis of ultrafast chemical reactions
  • Research on material and plasma dynamics

Impact on the Scientific Community

The release of open-source code marks a turning point in the accessibility of extreme capture techniques, transforming basic equipment into advanced research tools. This approach not only reduces costs but also accelerates innovation in multiple scientific and technological disciplines. 🔬