Demultiplexing Illumination via Low Cost Sensing and Nanosecond Coding

Several computer vision algorithms require a sequence of photographs taken in different illumination conditions, which has spurred development in the area of illumination multiplexing. Various techniques for optimizing the multi-plexing process already exist, but are geared toward regu-lar or high speed cameras. Such cameras are fast, but code on the order of milliseconds. In this paper we propose a fusion of two popular contexts, time of flight range cameras and illumination multiplexing. Time of flight cameras are a low cost, consumer-oriented technology capable of ac-quiring range maps at 30 frames per second. Such cameras have a natural connection to conventional illumination mul-tiplexing strategies as both paradigms rely on the capture of multiple shots and synchronized illumination. While previ-ous work on illumination multiplexing has exploited coding at millisecond intervals, we repurpose sensors that are or-dinarily used in time of flight imaging to demultiplex via nanosecond coding strategies. 1