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\"The results look incredible,\" said Gordon Wetzstein, an electrical engineer at Stanford University who was not involved in the study. \"I haven't really seen full color results at this quality.\"

Wetzstein was part of a previous approach that produced a monochrome reconstructed image of a hidden object. As part of the experiment, researchers bounced laser beams off a wall and toward a three-dimensional rabbit figurine. The light scattered, and some of it reflected back off the wall and toward the laser. There, a detector captured the reflected light, which could be pieced together to form an image of the rabbit. Instead of trying to make sense of diffuse, scattered light, this method tracks the laser beams' entire trajectories and travel times, producing a sharper image -- albeit in only a single hue.

While both techniques are still far from being applied commercially, the fact that the new experiment uses ordinary instruments pushes research closer in that direction, Wetzstein said. \"That's a big step toward making techniques like imaging hidden objects more practical with conventional hardware rather than relying on specialized equipment.\"

Researchers still have much to work out before this technique can, for instance, help tomorrow's driverless cars anticipate hazards lurking in the shadows. The method still requires a laboratory setting, and it only works if the contrast between the penumbra and the background is high enough. The researchers are now working on a hybrid approach that combines their shadow-based technique with other laser-based methods, Goyal said.

But the fact that any of these methods work at all and that we can see around corners is amazing, Wetzstein said. \"I wouldn't have thought it was even possible.\"

Inside Science is an editorially-independent nonprofit print, electronic and video journalism news service owned and operated by the American Institute of Physics.

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