The facility consists of portable high-speed video equipment to be signed out by MRSEC members. Due to the extremely high demand for high-speed imaging, this facility has recently been augmented by the purchase of 4 new cameras to supplement the two instruments that were available previously (a Kodak Motion Corder video camera and a Vision Research Phantom v7.0). The new cameras include a pair of Vision Research Phantom v7.3-turbo cameras that allow the reconstruction of 3-dimensional motion and structures, a Phantom v9.1 for increased resolution (at slower frame rates) useful for the high-speed X-ray imaging applications, and a color Phantom v7.1. The purchase of these cameras was leveraged through MRSEC and other University support.
This facility has been extensively used in outreach activities as well as in research. For example, the high speed video is used to film the events at the annual "Physics with a Bang!" lectures so that the audience can see the surprising phenomena involved in explosions, fracture and fluid behavior that occurs too rapidly to be observed by the human eye.