METHOD TO IMAGE HIGH SPEED EVENTS

A new imaging technique increases the effective frame rate of a video cam to a rate as high as one million Hz. In this technique, raw video signals are taken from the camera's sensors before the camera's logic does any signal processing. These signals are sent to an interface unit which selects signal segments for creating a composite image, the segments' size being as small as one or two pixels. Portions of the video signal that are not selected are given a zero value by the interface unit. The video signals are thereafter sent to the camera's signal processing logic, which converts the video signals into signals representing frames comprised of raster scan lines. The selected video signal segments become discrete portions of frames which are collected by a frame grabber. The frame grabber counts the times it has collected each discrete frame portion, determines an average value for each discrete portion, and builds the composite image from the averaged frame portions.