Seeing like a Cephalopod: Colour Vision with a Monochrome Event Camera

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Arja, Sami, Kruger, Nimrod, Marcireau, Alexandre, Ralph, Nicholas Owen, Afshar, Saeed, Cohen, Gregory
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Arja, Sami
Kruger, Nimrod
Marcireau, Alexandre
Ralph, Nicholas Owen
Afshar, Saeed
Cohen, Gregory
author_facet Arja, Sami
Kruger, Nimrod
Marcireau, Alexandre
Ralph, Nicholas Owen
Afshar, Saeed
Cohen, Gregory
contents Cephalopods exhibit unique colour discrimination capabilities despite having one type of photoreceptor, relying instead on chromatic aberration induced by their ocular optics and pupil shapes to perceive spectral information. We took inspiration from this biological mechanism to design a spectral imaging system that combines a ball lens with an event-based camera. Our approach relies on a motorised system that shifts the focal position, mirroring the adaptive lens motion in cephalopods. This approach has enabled us to achieve wavelength-dependent focusing across the visible light and near-infrared spectrum, making the event a spectral sensor. We characterise chromatic aberration effects, using both event-based and conventional frame-based sensors, validating the effectiveness of bio-inspired spectral discrimination both in simulation and in a real setup as well as assessing the spectral discrimination performance. Our proposed approach provides a robust spectral sensing capability without conventional colour filters or computational demosaicing. This approach opens new pathways toward new spectral sensing systems inspired by nature's evolutionary solutions. Code and analysis are available at: https://samiarja.github.io/neuromorphic_octopus_eye/
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_10984
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Seeing like a Cephalopod: Colour Vision with a Monochrome Event Camera
Arja, Sami
Kruger, Nimrod
Marcireau, Alexandre
Ralph, Nicholas Owen
Afshar, Saeed
Cohen, Gregory
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Cephalopods exhibit unique colour discrimination capabilities despite having one type of photoreceptor, relying instead on chromatic aberration induced by their ocular optics and pupil shapes to perceive spectral information. We took inspiration from this biological mechanism to design a spectral imaging system that combines a ball lens with an event-based camera. Our approach relies on a motorised system that shifts the focal position, mirroring the adaptive lens motion in cephalopods. This approach has enabled us to achieve wavelength-dependent focusing across the visible light and near-infrared spectrum, making the event a spectral sensor. We characterise chromatic aberration effects, using both event-based and conventional frame-based sensors, validating the effectiveness of bio-inspired spectral discrimination both in simulation and in a real setup as well as assessing the spectral discrimination performance. Our proposed approach provides a robust spectral sensing capability without conventional colour filters or computational demosaicing. This approach opens new pathways toward new spectral sensing systems inspired by nature's evolutionary solutions. Code and analysis are available at: https://samiarja.github.io/neuromorphic_octopus_eye/
title Seeing like a Cephalopod: Colour Vision with a Monochrome Event Camera
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10984