Utility and Feasibility of a Center Surround Event Camera

Standard dynamic vision sensor (DVS) event cameras output a stream of spatially-independent log-intensity brightness change events so they cannot suppress spatial redundancy. Nearly all biological retinas use an antagonistic center-surround organization. This paper proposes a practical method of implementing a compact, energy-efficient Center Surround DVS (CSDVS) with a surround smoothing network that uses compact polysilicon resistors for lateral resistance. The paper includes behavioral simulation results for the CSDVS (see sites.google.com/view/csdvs/home). The CSDVS would significantly reduce events caused by low spatial frequencies, but amplify the informative high frequency spatiotemporal events.

Enhanced Frame and Event-Based Simulator and Event-Based Video Interpolation Network

Fast neuromorphic event-based vision sensors (Dynamic Vision Sensor, DVS) can be combined with slower conventional frame-based sensors to enable higher-quality inter-frame interpolation than traditional methods relying on fixed motion approximations using e.g. optical flow. In this work we present a new, advanced event simulator that can produce realistic scenes recorded by a camera rig with an arbitrary number of sensors located at fixed offsets. It includes a new configurable frame-based image sensor model with realistic image quality reduction effects, and an extended DVS model with more accurate characteristics. We use our simulator to train a novel reconstruction model designed for end-to-end reconstruction of high-fps video. Unlike previously published methods, our method does not require the frame and DVS cameras to have the same optics, positions, or camera resolutions. It is also not limited to objects a fixed distance from the sensor. We show that data generated by our simulator can be used to train our new model, leading to reconstructed images on public datasets of equivalent or better quality than the state of the art. We also show our sensor generalizing to data recorded by real sensors.