  Event-based cameras (ECs) are bio-inspired sensors that asynchronously report
brightness changes for each pixel. Due to their high dynamic range, pixel
bandwidth, temporal resolution, low power consumption, and computational
simplicity, they are beneficial for vision-based projects in challenging
lighting conditions and they can detect fast movements with their microsecond
response time. The first generation of ECs are monochrome, but color data is
very useful and sometimes essential for certain vision-based applications. The
latest technology enables manufacturers to build color ECs, trading off the
size of the sensor and substantially reducing the resolution compared to
monochrome models, despite having the same bandwidth. In addition, ECs only
detect changes in light and do not show static or slowly moving objects. We
introduce a method to detect full RGB events using a monochrome EC aided by a
structured light projector. The projector emits rapidly changing RGB patterns
of light beams on the scene, the reflection of which is captured by the EC. We
combine the benefits of ECs and projection-based techniques and allow depth and
color detection of static or moving objects with a commercial TI LightCrafter
4500 projector and a monocular monochrome EC, paving the way for frameless
RGB-D sensing applications.
