Single-shot spatiotemporal intensity measurement of picosecond laser pulses with compressed ultrafast photography

•We developed an advanced compressed ultrafast photography technique to measure the spatiotemporal intensity distribution of the picosecond laser pulses, involving the experimental measurement system and the three-dimensional image reconstruction algorithm.•Our compressed ultrafast photography system can measure the picosecond laser pulses with a wide spectral range from ultraviolet (200 nm) to near infrared (850 nm), which depends on the spectral response of the streak camera.•Our compressed ultrafast photography system can measure the arbitrary spatiotemporal intensity distribution of the laser pulses within the temporal resolution of the streak camera (4 ps).•The compressed ultrafast photography technique has the remarkable advantages with the single shot measurement and without the reference laser pulse.•The compressed ultrafast photography technique extends the measurement of the picosecond laser pulses based on the streak camera from one dimension to two dimension in the space.