Amplifying small motions in large motions
For several years now, the research groups of MIT professors of computer science and engineering William Freeman and Frédo Durand have been investigating techniques for amplifying movements captured by video but indiscernible to the human eye. Versions of their algorithms can make the human pulse visible and even recover intelligible speech from the vibrations of objects filmed through soundproof glass. Earlier this month, at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference, Freeman, Durand, and colleagues at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) presented a new version of the algorithm that can amplify small motions even when they’re contained within objects executing large motions. So, for instance, it could make visible the precise sequence of muscle contractions in the arms of a baseball player swinging the bat, or in the legs of a soccer player taking a corner kick. “The previous version of the algorithm assumed everything was small in the video,” Durand...