12,616 Lenses for your Camera

By on April 3rd, 2008 in blog

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We’re not sure where this one is going, but a very interesting optical development may eventually result in astounding 3D scanning technology. A group from Stanford University has developed a unique optical camera concept. While a typical camera may have a 3MB pixel digital sensor, they want to modify it to contain a separate lens over top each 16×16 pixel array within the sensor.

What the heck does that mean? A lot: for one thing, potentially each image taken could have all portions in focus. As well, by comparing the difference in image between the mini-lenses and a standard lens over the entire array, 3D structure information could be derived – perhaps eventually resulting in a pocket 3D scanner!

A variety of other benefits could result, not the least of which would be the reduction in importance of the camera’s main lens – currently the most expensive portion of a camera.

We’re hoping this one works out!

Via TGDaily and Stanford

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!

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