Jerusalem Post - Prof. Yoav Schechner, of the Technion’s electrical engineering department, and colleagues developed the virtual periscope.
‘Up periscope!” may become an outdated order thanks to a team of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers who have developed a new technology for viewing objects above the water’s surface without the need for a periscope poking its head above the waves. The researchers modeled their virtual periscope on technology used by astronomers to counter blurring and distortion caused by layers of atmosphere when viewing stars.
The technology behind a submerged “virtual periscope” was introduced in a presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography, held in California earlier this month. Prof. Yoav Schechner, of the Technion’s electrical engineering department, and colleagues developed the virtual periscope, which is called “Stella Maris” (Stellar Marine Refractive Imaging Sensor).
The heart of the underwater imaging system is a camera – a pinhole array to admit light (a thin metal sheet with precise, laser-cut holes), a glass diffuser and mirrors.
The rays of the sun are projected through the pinholes to the diffuser, which is imaged by the camera, beside the distorted object of interest. The image is then corrected for distortion. Read More
