Screen Grabbing

Bats and submarines – both work out their surroundings from the echoes of signals fired into the dark. Here researchers grasp the similar principles to echolocation and sonar but apply them to light. LiDAR – and a similar technique called optical coherence tomography (OCT) – fires laser light at an object, spotting changes in the light’s properties to build up a 3D picture. Yet while OCT focuses on picking out microscopic detail inside living tissues, here LiDAR maps out crevices in much larger, moving, objects like a clenching hand (coloured by height). A diffraction grating scatters the laser light, making it easier to capture changes quickly as it scans over moving objects. The technique is being eyed up as candidate for improved robotic vision, but LiDAR may also complement OCT in universities and teaching hospitals, capturing pulsing tissues and organs in real time.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

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A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video from work by Ruobing Qian and colleagues
• Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, March 2022