Annals of DAAAM for 2012 & Proceedings of the 23rd International DAAAM Symposium, Volume 23, No.1, ISSN 2304-1382 ISBN 978-3-901509-91-9, CDROM version, Ed. B. Katalinic, Published by DAAAM International, Vienna, Austria, EU, 2012 Make Harmony between Technology and Nature, and Your Mind will Fly Free as a Bird Annals & Proceedings of DAAAM International 2012 HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION OF TIME-SPATIAL FRAMING METHOD PISZCZEK, M[arek]; RUTYNA, K[rzysztof]; KOWALSKI, M[arcin]; SZUSTAKOWSKI, M[ieczyslaw] & LUDWIKOWSKI, K[rzysztof] Abstract: Laser Photography Device (LPD) is an innovative solution for precise imaging of defined fragment of space. Such systems can be used to recognize and identify terrorist threats as a part of public places monitoring system. An idea of this device is a registration of images (following image frames) by illuminating observed scene with very short laser impulses. In this article an idea, properties of method and constructional solutions are presented. Keywords: range gated imaging, high speed photography systems, laser photography 1. INTRODUCTION Modern vision and imaging systems offer big observation-measurement capabilities and these systems play huge role in present information systems. One of the potential applications of vision systems is security industry. The very important aspect of preventing terrorist threats is building an effective multispectral and multisensor system for open areas monitoring. Places like military bases, aerodromes, borders or sea ports – places with big surface size are often being chosen to be a place for a terrorist attack. One of very interesting group of imaging devices are ToF (time-of-flight camera) cameras. These cameras can be used in systems mentioned above. The ToF cameras are able not only to acquire an image but also to measure a distance from the detector to observed object. This property is the most characteristic for ToF cameras. ToF camera types can be divided into three groups according to the light source used and data acquisition method: a) Impulse light source with digital time counters[1], b) Modulated light source with phase detectors [1,2], c) Impulse light source with gated acquisition time [1]. Solution presented in this article is a device using time gating image acquisition method. The time-spatial framing method developed by authors is used to build Laser Photography Device (LPD). An active vision device for open space monitoring and terrorist threats detection is being built as an effect of recent work lead in the Institute of Optoelectronics, MUT (started in 2005). The LPD is destined to prevent and recognize possible terrorist threats in important land and marine areas. 2. METHOD The ToF cameras are a major step in imaging devices development and because of their ability to acquire 3D information these cameras can replace recent stereoscopic systems to acquire spatial information. ToF cameras can be used to measure distances much more bigger than just single meters. Measurement ranges of ToF cameras can reach single kilometers thanks to using time-spatial framing method (with resolutions 0.5m). Unique and typical properties of ToF cameras distinguish this particular type of imaging device. Functionalities of ToF cameras can be very useful and essential for many space information systems. Particular attention should be devoted to imaging information aspects connected with laser cameras: a) An unique method of spatial information acquisition and visualization, b) Selectivity of spatial imaging, c) Hardware support for image quality enhancement, d) Autosegmentation of observed scene that can be useful in hardware image processing, e) Photogrammetric analysis of observed scene, f) Scene and objects spatial modelling, g) Autonavigation support for mobile platforms. The essence of time-spatial framing method is the scene illumination and the detection type of image acquisition. The idea of a time-spatial framing method is presented in fig. 1. The key control parameters marked on Fig. 1 - t O , t M , t D are describing suitably illumination time, waiting time, detection time and c - the speed of light. These parameters define: a) Time interval of registered events T, b) The distance to observation area Rmin , c) The depth of observation area R. Acquisition of chosen time-spatial horizon (Fig.1) is achieved by selecting time sequences to control functional blocks of the Laser Photography Device. T=0.5(tD+tO) Fig. 1 Diagram of time-spatial framing method - 0305 -