:: 3D CAMERA CHIP ::
I'm not normally impressed with gadgets but this one deserves some special attention. I wonder if the 1DS Mark IV will have this? Who knows? Next week could be flying cars, cheers.
A new camera chip design from scientists at Stanford University has opened up the possibility of 3D photos. The chip has stacked 16 x 16 pixel arrays and a host of micro-lenses, much like a fly's eye, enabling the whole chip to "see" in three dimensions, unlike a normal 2D pixel array digital camera sensor. Here's how it works:
Data from the "multi-aperture array" then goes through image processing to extract a standard RGB image, along with a "depth map" for each pixel—very useful for applications like face- or object-recognition.
Essentially, each tiny sub-array of pixels in the Stanford sensor sees objects in front of the camera from a slightly different viewpoint. Software then looks for relative shifts between the same object's image in different lenses, and processes this parallax data to work out the object's distance.
As well as giving depth information, the design may reduce the color-crosstalk problems current sensors suffer from. It can also take macro close-ups in restricted spaces, making it potentially useful in medical situations.