Toshiba’s New Camera Modules Turn Smartphones into Light-Field Cameras
Toshiba’s New Camera Modules Turn Smartphones into Light-Field Cameras by UCStrategies Staff
At Toshiba’s research lab in Kawasaki, IDG News Service reports on being presented with a test unit of a cubic image module that the company has been working on. Toshiba is said to have been developing the said modules, measuring around 8mm on every side, in order to incorporate depth into the small cameras found in smartphones.
The image module, being run by its software, is said to give a smartphone a refocusing functionality, wherein it can alter focus points after the photo or video is shot. It enables a smartphone camera to precisely identify a person or an object from a crowded image and to capture movements, such as taps and other gestures, in midair. During the demonstration of the new camera module to CIO, it was detailed that the unit was able to photograph a doll against a certain background then transposed it with another background.
The ensuing tiny digital camera module can perform the light-field photography associated with the Lytro camera, which has the ability to take tens of thousands of photographs then lets the user select a point of focus. Lytro is a California-based startup.
“Lytro doesn't make semiconductors, so the camera module is a product that Toshiba is probably better-suited to make,” said Atsushi Ido, a representative for Toshiba, in his conversation with Jay Alabaster in a December 2012 news report from Computerworld. Ido also explained that the new camera module was similar to the compound eyes of insects.
Dubbed by Jay Alabaster as the “Lytro chip” in his news story for CIO, Toshiba’s new camera module will contain miniature lenses numbering from 30,000 to 50,000 and presently uses a standard 8-megapixel image sensor to produce 2-megapixel shots.
“We use much of the data not for resolution, but for determining distance,” said Hideyuki Funaki, a Toshiba researcher. Funaki said that the latest version of the digital camera module is able to shoot 30 frames per second of video. He said that a future version will have a 13-megapixel sensor that can create light-field images with a resolution of either five or six megapixels.
The modules rely on a traditional CMOS image sensor plus a main lens. A layer composed of tens of thousands of miniature lenses is inserted between the two. Each tiny lens has around 20 pixels capturing the “same scene at slightly different angles, data that can then be analyzed to produce distance information or refocus.”
Toshiba plans to have the product available by March, 2014. (KOM) Link. Link.