ANALYSIS: EVENT-BASED VISION
‘MWC 2023 was a breakout moment for this trend, and the consumer market has taken notice’
constrained technologies such as mobile phones. Because data is captured only when the scene changes, independent of a conventional camera’s frame rate setting, they can provide power savings and higher bandwidth, which a mobile phone can use to actively monitor the scene. While not meant to be a standalone alternative, by working in tandem with frame-based cameras, data from event sensors can be combined with that generated by frame- based cameras to effectively deblur images. MWC 2023 was a breakout moment for
Prophesee’s Metavision sensor has been optimised for use with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile platforms to enhance smartphone photography
pixel change in brightness – which we call events – through intelligent pixels, and process these as they occur. Tis means they can capture motions with a much higher temporal resolution and lower latency – and with less data processed (meaning less power consumption) than traditional cameras. It’s the way our eyes and brains – the most efficient vision sensing systems of them all – work to process scenes. Event-based vision addresses a
fundamental limitation of traditional camera techniques: how light is captured. In a camera, the sensor needs to open to capture light. Te lower the light, the longer it has to stay open. But the world does not stop when you take a picture and the motion information happening while the sensor is open generates motion
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blur that cannot be fixed properly today. And faster frame rates or shutter speeds actually worsen low-light performance for conventional cameras. Software-based computational photography techniques have helped modify this problem, but artefacts still remain, and blurring occurs even in the most high-end cameras. Te practical result of applying this
biological technique is the ability to capture fast-moving objects with much greater clarity and detail. And, importantly, they don’t suffer from motion blur. By combining an event-based sensor with a frame- based system, effective deblurring can be achieved, making photography and video capture more precise and lifelike. Inherently, event cameras are well
suited to power-sensitive and bandwidth-
this trend, and the consumer market has taken notice. As Robert Triggs at Android Authority says: “Farewell, blurry pet photos, unusable sports action shots, and smudged low-light snaps.” He was referencing the fact that my company announced a relationship with Qualcomm to enable native compatibility of our event-based sensors and software with its widely-used Snapdragon platform. Tis follows our on- going partnership with Sony, the world’s leading supplier of CMOS sensors to the smartphone market, with whom we have collaborated to make the size and power of event sensors more suitable to mobile applications. Having two such critical suppliers to the consumer market segment aligned around event-based vision as a pathway to improved mobile photography experiences is a significant step forward. While the immediate impact will be first seen in deblurring and better low-light performance, this new sensing modality opens the door to a wide range of new use cases in mobile devices and wearables. O
APRIL/MAY 2023 IMAGING AND MACHINE VISION EUROPE 21
Qualcomm/Prophesee
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