Posted By
Mike Lata
January 27, 2012 at 8:51am
Although there are a couple smartphones capable of producing stereo 3D picture (some are even glasses-free) I am not sure if any of them actually allow users to shoot 3D video. I am quite sure none do, and certainly not in any efficient or high-quality manner. The Nintendo 3DS does have some 3D shooting capabilities. However, it is very limited in many ways -- quality, for instance, and duration of capture.
Despite this, if MIT researchers have anything to say, 3D cameras on mobile devices may soon be powerful, inexpensive and efficient.
According to MITnews, "imagine a device that provides more-accurate depth information than the Kinect, has a greater range and works under all lighting conditions — but is so small, cheap and power-efficient that it could be incorporated into a cellphone at very little extra cost. That’s the promise of recent work by Vivek Goyal, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, and his group at MIT’s Research Lab of Electronics."
The Kinect was compared because it allows for some intestine imagery and manipulation. It has also been used by MIT to expand onto traditional stereo 3D setups and production processes. However, taking ideas from the Kinect won't be enough for these cameras. Clever math will also have to play a role.
"The MIT researchers’ system, by contrast, uses only a single light detector — a one-pixel camera. But by using some clever mathematical tricks, it can get away with firing the laser a limited number of times... Indeed, the algorithm lets the researchers get away with relatively crude hardware. Their system measures the time of flight of photons using a cheap photodetector and an ordinary analog-to-digital converter — an off-the-shelf component already found in all cellphones."
The report also mentioned various other techniques the MIT researchers are experimenting with, however you can go read the report for the specifics. The bottom line is that with MIT's research, inexpensive yet very efficient 3D cameras could soon be making their way to our mobile devices.
This is a great thing particularly for those of you aspiring 3D videographers and film makers. Who doesn't want to shoot their next family gathering in 3D?