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Xiaomi Teams Up with Light to Develop Multi-Module Cameras for Smartphones

posted by martyb on Thursday March 07 2019, @08:13PM   
from the can-you-picture-this? dept.

takyon writes:

Xiaomi Teams Up with Light for Multi-Module Smartphone Cameras

Xiaomi and Light, a computational imaging firm, have announced at Mobile World Congress that the two companies will be working together to develop new multi-module cameras for smartphones. The two companies promised that the jointly-developed cameras will feature DSLR-level capabilities, but did not disclose when the first product from the joint project is expected to come to fruition.

Light specializes on computational imaging solutions using multiple camera arrays. The company has gone so far as to develop their own chip that can work with 6, 12, or 18-camera arrays. And while Xiaomi and Light aren't specifying just how big of a camera array they're looking to develop, we're likely looking at something in the lower-bounds of those number, if only due to the limited size of smartphones. For reference's sake, a 6-module camera would be very similar to what Nokia has done for their Nokia 9 PureView.

Cover the entire back of a smartphone with cameras, then gingerly hold it using the corners.

Related: Meta-Lens Works in the Visible Spectrum, Sees Smaller Than a Wavelength of Light
A Pocket Camera with Many Eyes - Inside the Development of Light
Caltech Replaces Lenses With Ultra-Thin Optical Phased Array
Nokia (HMD Global) Partners with Zeiss for Optics Capabilities
Google Reportedly Acquires Lytro, Which Made Refocusable Light Field Cameras
LG's V40 Smartphone Could Include Five Cameras
Leaked Image Shows Nokia-Branded Smartphone With Five Rear Cameras

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Original Submission

• Re:Heh. Re:Heh. (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Thursday March 07 2019, @08:43PM (3 children)

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Thursday March 07 2019, @08:43PM (#811335) Journal

  This was basically part of the use case for the Red Hydrogen One [wikipedia.org] high-end smartphone, which was poorly reviewed [soylentnews.org].

  The Hydrogen One's signature features revolve around imaging, including a 3D display that uses diffracted backlighting to create depth effects, dual front and rear cameras that can take pictures and film video in the device's proprietary 3D format, and pin connectors that will allow the device to be integrated into other planned products (such as a 3D 8K camera that will use the Hydrogen One as a viewfinder).

  Ultimately, weight and thickness (thinness) are top concerns for smartphone manufacturers. Adding different lenses with varying focal lengths, zoom levels, etc. and then combining data from them and cleaning it up with an algorithm is a smart approach to the problem of offering high quality photography/videography in that form factor. You also need two cameras at minimum to do something like VR180 recording [google.com]. Many here will mock the 3+ camera trend but I like it and nobody has to pick up the latest new smartphone... just wait a couple years for the features to trickle down to cheaper or used phones.

  There's also a possibility of using something like a phased array or some sort of metamaterial lens to go beyond the bounds of what is normally possible optically. These still seem to be in the lab phase. It will be interesting to see which machinery gets the technology first: space telescopes, smartphones, VR headsets...?

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• Re:Heh. Re:Heh. (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @09:58PM (2 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @09:58PM (#811347)

  Phased array on a smartphone is a completely idiotic idea. First, you aren't going to phase it in any stable fashion in that form factor because you'll need to combine the beams, and you're not doing that in a thin smart phone. Plus, let's say you do phase them, what are you gaining? You effectively now have the resolution of a lens that is the width of the phone, but only in that one dimension. And you've thrown out all your signal because though you have an effective aperture that is the size of whatever circle you encircle the two lenses, you have the photon collection efficiency that is the ratio of the areas of the lenses to the area of the effective aperture. Kind of get the worst of all cases.

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  • Re:Heh. (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:12PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:12PM (#811356) Journal

    https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/ultra-thin-camera-creates-images-without-lenses-78731 [caltech.edu]

    Traditional cameras—even those on the thinnest of cell phones—cannot be truly flat due to their optics: lenses that require a certain shape and size in order to function. At Caltech, engineers have developed a new camera design that replaces the lenses with an ultra-thin optical phased array (OPA). The OPA does computationally what lenses do using large pieces of glass: it manipulates incoming light to capture an image.

    [...] "We've created a single thin layer of integrated silicon photonics that emulates the lens and sensor of a digital camera, reducing the thickness and cost of digital cameras. It can mimic a regular lens, but can switch from a fish-eye to a telephoto lens instantaneously—with just a simple adjustment in the way the array receives light," Hajimiri says.

    [...] Last year, Hajimiri's team rolled out a one-dimensional version of the camera that was capable of detecting images in a line, such that it acted like a lensless barcode reader but with no mechanically moving parts. This year's advance was to build the first two-dimensional array capable of creating a full image. This first 2D lensless camera has an array composed of just 64 light receivers in an 8 by 8 grid. The resulting image has low resolution. But this system represents a proof of concept for a fundamental rethinking of camera technology, Hajimiri and his colleagues say.

    "The applications are endless," says graduate student Behrooz Abiri (MS '12), coauthor of the OSA paper. "Even in today's smartphones, the camera is the component that limits how thin your phone can get. Once scaled up, this technology can make lenses and thick cameras obsolete. It may even have implications for astronomy by enabling ultra-light, ultra-thin enormous flat telescopes on the ground or in space."

    "The ability to control all the optical properties of a camera electronically using a paper-thin layer of low-cost silicon photonics without any mechanical movement, lenses, or mirrors, opens a new world of imagers that could look like wallpaper, blinds, or even wearable fabric," says Hajimiri. Next, the team will work on scaling up the camera by designing chips that enable much larger receivers with higher resolution and sensitivity.

    They are either hyping it up or they genuinely think it can be used in smartphones at some point. I wouldn't rule this technology out just yet.

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  • Re:Heh. (Score: 2) by driverless on Friday March 08 2019, @02:37AM

    by driverless (4770) on Friday March 08 2019, @02:37AM (#811437)

    the jointly-developed cameras will feature DSLR-level capabilities

    You can tell that that's been written by advertising copywriters. To get DSLR-level capabilities you need an actual DSLR, big glass, big sensors. Claiming you can get DSLR-level performance from a tiny fixed lens and equally tiny sensor on a cellphone is the same as claiming you can get Wharfedale-level performance from a tiny sound bar. You can try really, really hard to fake it, and under just the right conditions with just the right audience marginally pull it off, but the rest of the time you are just faking it.

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