High speed X-ray video: jumping beans, wind-up toys and more!

High-speed X-ray video captured with a Dectris photon-counting detector. I show how the process works and how this detector is different than normal camera detectors.

The sequence of tiff files directly from the sensor contain a lot of temporal flicker -- probably because the X-ray tube itself has time-varying output. This isn't so bad at 60Hz, but quite a problem at 300Hz. I used Resolve's "color stabilizer" to maintain constant levels throughout a clip, and was impressed how well this removed the flicker.

[AppliedScience]

Someone on twitter asked if there is a light-to-frequency conversion for Mexican jumping beans. Wouldn't it be funny to make a camera with jumping beans as pixels?!

[JonaJona]

I've worked at particle accelerator x-ray sources and we indeed had a bunch of these high speed photon counting detectors from Dectris and other brands around, though I've never seen such a small one. The Megapixel 2000 fps detectors I know of were in the lower six digits in price. The cool kids nowadays have Megapixel Megahertz detectors at free electron lasers though. Those capture short bursts of images at 5 million fps in full multi Megapixel size with large dynamic range

[mikeselectricstuff]

Re. jumping beans and light, it might be fun to project a symbol on the floor with beans scattered randomly, and do a timelapse of them clustering around the dark areas.

[MajhTown]

Got the notification for this at the same time as a tinder match… i choose this every time.

[charliemopps]

Years ago I had a serious problem with GERD (acid reflux/heart burn) that I eventually had fixed via surgery. Prior to surgery they try various medications or behavior modifications to control the disease as an alternative to surgery and this involved several visits to a radiologist. At one appointment he said "you seem like the type that would be into science..." and after I confirmed his suspicioun he offered to show me a "live x-ray" of my digestive track while swallowing to help me better understand the mechanisms involved, but at the cost of a slightly increased x-ray exposure. He felt it was safe and worth the effort but didn't want so it without my understanding and consent. I was, of course, excited and approved and he brought up a live x-ray of my stomach and showed me exactly how swallowing worked while my body was resting in various different positions. It's actually a lot faster than you think it works be, the food launches down your throat like it was shot out of a slingshot. The "plumbing" of your upper digestive track is actually fairly simple and changes in how you lay in bed can have quite a dramatic affect of the ability of the contents of your stomach to migrate back up your throat. It was very informative and well worth the slightly increased x-ray dose in my opinion.

[kegwf]

I was laughing at that 6 figure delicate machine on your work bench by the vise in your garage, propped up on a roll of tape. You know they like you when they let you play with their toys!

[mannys]

You're so cool. Honestly, truthfully, I love how you do these experiments and demos which are fascinating and then go in depth about all the relevant details. I always enjoy your videos. :) Cracking your knuckles would have been great to see on highspeed X-ray if you're willing to accept the dose. 😺 A second or 2 at most to crack one phalangeal joint and capture that video.

[nerdy]

Honestly the jumping beans was one of the coolest things I have seen. Great content as always.

[BlankBrain]

In 1972, Field Emission Corporation had a high power pulsed x-ray machine that ran at 1000 frames per second. The setup used a Varian image intensifier tube and a high speed camera with rotating mirrors so the film never slowed. The demonstration showed a model airplane engine running. The actual use was to image pig brains under high G loads using a rocket sled and rapid deceleration. The data was used by the space program and military.
Other products allowed stop-action x-ray images. One machine was capable of producing a 2.5 MeV pulse of 4 ns duration. There were interlocks to the room because the scattered radiation dose from one pulse was lethal. The unit was used to x-ray bomb detonations in the dessert, x-ray aircraft engines, simulate atomic blasts in small spaces, radiation harden semiconductors, and other things.

[BRUXXUS]

Could you use this to visualize the X-ray emissions from peeling packing tape off the roll? That might be neat!

[xTJ]

Seeing those bugs in moving x-ray is really cool, I don't think I've seen anything like that before.

[InLoveWithFlight]

We are using DECTRIS detectors at work (synchrotron beamlines) so I was very intrigued to see one of these on your channel. Amazing video. Another thing worth mentioning is the extremely high dynamic range on single pixel level, unlike any other X-ray image sensor. With these detectors any individual pixel can collect around a million photons before it saturates while the adjacent pixels still remain sensitive to single photons, so there is no bleed over as in CCDs. At the same time you can resolve intensity variations of a million to one while CMOS sensors typically saturate at 65000 counts. That's why they are so valuable for synchrotron science where the X-ray beam is tens of thousands times brighter than from an X-ray tube. By the way, the reasony why they're not so common in imaging is because their pixels are relatively large. The Pilatus models comes at 172µm and the new Eiger models have 75µm pixel size. That's a lot bigger than 5-10µm in high resolution imaging systems (with a much worse signal-to-noise-ratio of course). And of course, they are way more expensive than traditional imaging sensors...

[ZeroInDaHouse]

The "this is youtube" part sounded more like "I don't want to get canceled" XD. As always, awesome video.

[ncw]

That's so cool!
Actually photon coounting is also used in medical imaging. New generation CT scans with photon counting are making it to clinical use. They allow lower doses of both x-rays and contrast agents, higher spatial resolution, sharper images (higher signal to noise ratio) and allow "native" spectral imaging with higher precision.
At least that's what the manufacturers are marketing, I've never got to use one yet.

[samykamkar]

So cool! Finally got an old Faxitron DX-50 (12cm^2 sensor) X-ray and am attempting to add motorized CT scanning. Learning so much from your vids as usual!

[gsgeology]

I am a Technical Sales Rep for Proto X-ray Diffraction, and have been doing both single crystal and powder XRD for over 18 years. We use these detectors on our build for both types of systems. They are great for measuring diffracted X-rays from everything from small molecule organics like polymers to minerals and more. We are using one of these to assist in X_ray Metrology in a custom build for a customer.

[TheBlahblahblahhh]

Look at this maniac putting the kids toy popper UPSIDE DOWN.

Really cool video. Thanks for making it!

[mikereilly]

Your channel is absolutely incredible ! I wish you were my neighbor. You are educating and opening the curiosity door for so many people. We desperately need people like you with channels like this. Thank You.

[terriplays]

Imagine my surprise seeing you having a Pilatus detector. My work place is probably one of Dectris‘ best customers, we have two of the current high end 16MP cameras, an even more specialised one for harder radiation, and at least a dozen smaller and older detectors. These things are used at accelerators dedicated to generating X-rays, so-called synchrotron radiation sources. Also funny that you mention ImageJ, we use it every day. Btw, the Mylar window is mostly there to keep the dry nitrogen in. The sensor is cooled with Peltier elements to sub-ambient temperatures and would form condensation without it.

I’ll send this video to my colleagues for sure.

[davidchang-yen]

In my work I have seen the big brother of this Dectris detector at a national lab synchrotron. Used for X-ray crystallography, essential for molecule structural analysis in drug discovery. And yes, they are eye-wateringly expensive.