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The Remarkable Visual Abilities of Nocturnal Insects: Neural Principles and Bioinspired Night-Vision Algorithms

Warrant, Eric LU orcid ; Oskarsson, Magnus LU orcid and Malm, Henrik (2014) In Proceedings of the IEEE 102(10). p.1411-1426
Abstract
Despite their tiny eyes and brains, nocturnal insects have remarkable visual abilities. Recent work-particularly on fast-flying moths and bees and on ball-rolling dung beetles-has shown that nocturnal insects are able to distinguish colors, to detect faint movements, to learn visual landmarks, to orient to the faint pattern of polarized light produced by the moon, and to navigate using the stars. These impressive visual abilities are the result of exquisitely adapted eyes and visual systems, the product of millions of years of evolution. Even though we are only at the threshold of understanding the neural mechanisms responsible for reliable nocturnal vision, growing evidence suggests that the neural summation of photons in space and time... (More)
Despite their tiny eyes and brains, nocturnal insects have remarkable visual abilities. Recent work-particularly on fast-flying moths and bees and on ball-rolling dung beetles-has shown that nocturnal insects are able to distinguish colors, to detect faint movements, to learn visual landmarks, to orient to the faint pattern of polarized light produced by the moon, and to navigate using the stars. These impressive visual abilities are the result of exquisitely adapted eyes and visual systems, the product of millions of years of evolution. Even though we are only at the threshold of understanding the neural mechanisms responsible for reliable nocturnal vision, growing evidence suggests that the neural summation of photons in space and time is critically important: even though vision in dim light becomes necessarily coarser and slower, those details that are preserved are seen clearly. These benefits of spatio-temporal summation have obvious implications for dim-light video technologies. In addition to reviewing the visual adaptations of nocturnal insects, we here describe an algorithm inspired by nocturnal visual processing strategies-from amplification of primary image signals to optimized spatio-temporal summation to reduce noise-that dramatically increases the reliability of video collected in dim light, including the preservation of color. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Compound eye, denoising, image enhancement, insect, nocturnal vision, structure tensor, summation
in
Proceedings of the IEEE
volume
102
issue
10
pages
1411 - 1426
publisher
IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
external identifiers
  • wos:000344482400003
  • scopus:85027927712
ISSN
0018-9219
DOI
10.1109/JPROC.2014.2332533
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
009ec7ec-3a1b-48a3-9285-bc7433dfbd17 (old id 4871348)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 14:38:29
date last changed
2024-04-25 01:32:52
@article{009ec7ec-3a1b-48a3-9285-bc7433dfbd17,
  abstract     = {{Despite their tiny eyes and brains, nocturnal insects have remarkable visual abilities. Recent work-particularly on fast-flying moths and bees and on ball-rolling dung beetles-has shown that nocturnal insects are able to distinguish colors, to detect faint movements, to learn visual landmarks, to orient to the faint pattern of polarized light produced by the moon, and to navigate using the stars. These impressive visual abilities are the result of exquisitely adapted eyes and visual systems, the product of millions of years of evolution. Even though we are only at the threshold of understanding the neural mechanisms responsible for reliable nocturnal vision, growing evidence suggests that the neural summation of photons in space and time is critically important: even though vision in dim light becomes necessarily coarser and slower, those details that are preserved are seen clearly. These benefits of spatio-temporal summation have obvious implications for dim-light video technologies. In addition to reviewing the visual adaptations of nocturnal insects, we here describe an algorithm inspired by nocturnal visual processing strategies-from amplification of primary image signals to optimized spatio-temporal summation to reduce noise-that dramatically increases the reliability of video collected in dim light, including the preservation of color.}},
  author       = {{Warrant, Eric and Oskarsson, Magnus and Malm, Henrik}},
  issn         = {{0018-9219}},
  keywords     = {{Compound eye; denoising; image enhancement; insect; nocturnal vision; structure tensor; summation}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{10}},
  pages        = {{1411--1426}},
  publisher    = {{IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.}},
  series       = {{Proceedings of the IEEE}},
  title        = {{The Remarkable Visual Abilities of Nocturnal Insects: Neural Principles and Bioinspired Night-Vision Algorithms}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2014.2332533}},
  doi          = {{10.1109/JPROC.2014.2332533}},
  volume       = {{102}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}