How These Scientists Are Turning X-Ray Vision Into a Reality

How These Scientists Are Turning X-Ray Vision Into a Reality

CDT is a process that uses a single-photon avalanche diode and pulsed laser systems to effectively see through a medium. With a short pulse of light, a laser illuminates a point on a surface. From here, the light diffuses through the foam and onto the surface of your targeted object on the opposite side. The light from the laser then bounces off the surface of the object and diffuses once again back through the foam and returns to the original point the laser was illuminated.

Researchers then used a processing algorithm and their collected data points to produce a histogram. Which will show the photon count along the y-axis and time along the x-axis. Through these data points, this helps give researchers their first glimpse of what’s on the other side! But that’s just the first step, in order to get a 3D image this process is done multiple times by scanning a series of points on a grid through a process which the team calls confocal scanning.

These data points then work together to effectively create a blurry map. Using this, researchers can then apply a specific set of algorithms and light filters to reconstruct the completed 3D image of the targeted object. And the best part about it is that although this might seem like a really long process, this team is able to completely restructure an image in as little as 0.3 seconds!