8 ms·

Revolutionary "Light Field" camera tech - shoot-first, focus-later

ggchappell 15y ago
Very nice. But it leaves me wondering about a couple of things: (1) Given the info captured by the camera, can we, without further human input, create an image in which everything is in focus? (2) What the heck are these people thinking? Going into the camera business? That means that, in order to get my hands on this technology, I am stuck with whatever zillions of other design decisions they made. One product. No competition. No multiple companies trying different ways to integrate this idea into a product. And if this company goes belly-up, then the good ol' patent laws mean that the tech is just gone for more than a decade. <sigh> Please license this. P.S. FTA: > Once images are captured, they can be posted to Facebook and shared via any modern Web browser, including mobile devices such as the iPhone. Surely there must be a more straightforward, but still understandable to non-techies, way to say "the result is an ordinary image file".
- shadowpwner 15y ago
  This technology has been around in research articles for at least 15 years. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=light+field+photography&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=0 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=light+field+ph...
  - pgbovine 15y ago
    true, but that's usually the amount of time it takes for many research technologies to come to fruition as products.
    - shadowpwner 15y ago
      Apologies if I wasn't clear, I was referring to the above poster's comment about this technology being patented.
- thijsterlouw 15y ago
  The image quality seems a bit low (low contrast/greyish, lots of grain), but the concept is very cool. I also see lots of artifacts (horizontal lines) in several of the demo images: http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  A. Yes, I'd imagine so, within reason. Makes for a less interesting demo, though - we've seen lots of images with large focal depth, and lots of images with a narrower depth of focus used to call out one thing, but we've never seen snapshots which you can refocus after they are taken. This is seriously awesome. B. This tech isn't going anywhere. If the camera succeeds they might license it. If the camera fails they will surely try to license it. Note also that the technique is apparently not wholly new so the key patents are already running down. And your point about all those design choices that go into the camera cuts both ways. If they license this tech to a consumer electronics company that flubs the execution they will lose money, as the lousy execution will reflect badly on the tech and will prevent it from getting popular sooner. (The sooner every camera buyer wants this tech, the more profits there will be before the patents expire.) In a world consisting mainly of (a) Apple and (b) hardware companies that cannot design software to save their lives, keeping control of your own fate seems wise. The popularity of this technique among the general public will presumably depend crucially on the UI, both when taking the photo and when displaying it. Better to screw that up yourself than outsource the screwing up to someone else. ;)
- andrewflnr 15y ago
  Re (1), the guy in the video gives a couple demonstrations of focusing everything in an image. It seems reasonable to assume it could be automated, if that's what you're asking. And for what it's worth, the just-one-design thing has worked out pretty well for Apple.
- wisty 15y ago
  (1) - cameras already do this. Photography 101 - if you use a small apature, everything is in focus (minus diffraction and motion blur). Cheap lenses (like most cellphones) have low apertures, and don't really need to focus. Expensive lenses (like the iPhone 4 lens) often have high apertures, which let you take faster photos, and artistically blur stuff. Photographers don't like to do this, as blurring the background draws your attention to the subject.
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
    > Cheap lenses (like most cellphones) have low apertures, and don't really need to focus. Some companies seem to follow this idea and then, surprise surprise, barcode scanning app doesn't really work on my phone because someone decided not to install AF with the camera :/.
- juiceandjuice 15y ago
  You can have your car in any color you would like, as long as it's black.
- liuliu 15y ago
  (1). if my memory serves, they can do this by taking one pixel from each len and compose them into a total focus image.
shadowpwner 15y ago
The ability to focus afterwards is at the tradeoff of image size and quality, assuming they use a microlens array similar to the study located here: http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/. However, this is cleverly marketed towards the social media crowd, which has little use for high resolution photos.
pgbovine 15y ago
FYI Ren Ng (the founder of this company) won the 2006 ACM Doctoral Dissertation award for the research that turned into this product: http://awards.acm.org/doctoral_dissertation/ http://awards.acm.org/doctoral_dissertation/
- ja27 15y ago
  I found a couple of his publications: http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/fourierphoto/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/fourierphoto/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfmicroscope/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfmicroscope/
  - dgreensp 15y ago
    I read these papers in grad school in 2007. Apparently he's been working on commercializing it ever since. This guy is the real deal.
gmatty 15y ago
I'm not an optics expert, but couldn't this be used to generate 3d depth maps? By stepping through each field depth you could find the edges of objects (by how clear they were at each depth) and map those edges onto a mesh. Effectively, doing what the kinect does but without any of the infrared projections...
- ugh 15y ago
  That’s definitely possible but low contrast regions without any edges to detect (e.g. a grey wall) are probably a problem.
- m3koval 15y ago
  You could probably do it, but it's not clear why it would be superior to stereo vision. Both approaches have the same pitfalls (CPU-intensive, need texture to work well) and stereo vision is largely a solved problem that works on commodity hardware.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Because you don’t need a second sensor and a second lens?
    - alex_h 15y ago
      Well, to be fair, you actually need a whole array of (micro)lenses, so 2 lenses sounds pretty reasonable.
    - m3koval 15y ago
      Stereo vision does need two sensors and two lenses, where a micro-lens approach would only require one of each. However, the micro-lens camera would need a much larger and higher resolution sensor to produce a depth image that has the same resolution of the equivalent stereo camera. Ignoring the size of the sensor, producing two standard camera lenses will always be cheaper than producing an array of multiple (i.e. more than two) micro-lenses. This is doubly true considering that the micro-lens technology is already encumbered by patents. Finally, stereo is very well understood and has already been implemented on the GPU, on FPGAs and in ASICs (commonly known as STOC, Stereo On-Chip). I would personally love to see a demo of a micro-lens array used for creating a depth map, but I just don't see any practical advantages over stereo.
sp332 15y ago
This is much more useful than a simple depth map, since it works with translucent and amorphous things like steam, and other things that are hard to model with meshes like motes of dust. Also, if you have a shiny object, focusing at one depth might show the surface of the object in focus, but focusing at a different depth would show the reflection in focus.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
sbierwagen 15y ago
The downsides, which, of course, this press release doesn't mention: - Greatly, greatly reduced image resolution. Great big dedicated-camera sized lens and image sensor, cellphone-camera sized pictures. 1680×1050, at most. (1.76MP) - Color aberration. The microlenses have to be small, of course, so they're going to be made of single physical elements, rather than doublets.[1] - Various amusing aliasing problems. (note the fine horizontal lines on some of the demo shots) - Low FPS. Each image requires lots of processing, which means the CPU will have to chew on data for a while before you can take another image. - Proprietary toolchain for the dynamic images. Sure, cameras all have their particular RAW sensor formats, but this is also going to have its own output image format. No looking at thumbnails in file browsers. Photoshop won't have any idea what to do with it. Can't print it, of course. - - You can just produce a composite image that's sharp all over, but why not use a conventional camera with stopped-down[2] lens, then? - It's going to be really thrillingly expensive. This is a given, of course, with new camera technology. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublet_(lens) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublet_(lens) [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/stop#Effects_on_image_quality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/stop#Effects_on_image_quality
- adelevie 15y ago
  >cellphone-camera sized pictures. With 5+ megapixel cell phone cameras being common these days, what resolution do you imply in that sentence?
  - sbierwagen 15y ago
    Why, back in my day phones didn't have cameras in 'em t'all! So, I don't know. 1280×720? 1680×1050 at most? They don't quote a megapixel number on their site, of course.
  - wisty 15y ago
    Most cell phones have about 1 MP of signal, and 4 MP of noise.
- MichaelApproved 15y ago
  "- Low FPS. Each image requires lots of processing, which means the CPU will have to chew on data for a while before you can take another image." This will improve and processor speed improves eventually making it a nonissue. "- Proprietary toolchain for the dynamic images. Sure, cameras all have their particular RAW sensor formats, but this is also going to have its own output image format. No looking at thumbnails in file browsers. Photoshop won't have any idea what to do with it. Can't print it, of course." Sure, the raw image needs to be processed but you can export the focused product and do what you like, can't you? I can invasion a raw pic and a "best guess on what you'd like to be in focus" jpeg along with it. You can then improve on the jpeg by using the raw image to change what's in focus and recreate the jpeg.
clc 15y ago
This is a very interesting concept, I would be doubly interested to see this technology used for video in camcorders. However, I'm curious to see if they have the resources available to go toe to toe with Nikon, Canon, and Olympus. The camera industry is so competitive... and the life cycles on digital cameras are so quick nowadays. They may find it difficult to keep up.
- thomasgerbe 15y ago
  I don't think they need to keep up with the middle-to-high end yet. Given the choice of glass and bodies, I think most professionals would still keep with Nikon and Canon (especially for print). But for entry-level, I could see it being a killer because of the ease.
- whatusername 15y ago
  semi-pro's. Don't forget about Medium Format, etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_format_%28film%29#Digital_medium_format http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_format_%28film%29#Digita...
EdgarZambrana 15y ago
Imagine it being combined with technology that tracks your eyes motion, focusing the part of the image you're looking at automatically.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  Combine it with 3D glasses and maybe, just maybe, 3D movies will become bearable to watch.
- dstein 15y ago
  Then take it few steps further with a 360 degree fish eye lense strapped to your forehead, and some sort of VR helmet display for playback. Then take the camera while skiing, mountain climbing etc., and you would essentially have a brainscanning device like in the movies Strange Days, or Brainscan.
hdeo 15y ago
There may be an opportunity in 'doing something' with all the data collected ..
jianshen 15y ago
Looking forward, I see interesting applications of this tech in motion graphics and film. Where 3D movies have failed in forcing the user to focus on something, I can see this bringing photos and eventually film to life in ways that let the audience control more of what they want to experience. On the motion graphics side, I imagine all kinds of creative potential in compositing photography together with procedural or rendered graphics.
DLarsen 15y ago
As a geek, I think this is totally awesome. As a casual photographer, I'm less excited. I've pretty much got the hang of focusing my shots as I'm taking them. Why focus later what I can focus now?
- shadowfox 15y ago
  Well. One use would be to experiment with different focuses and pick the best later. It is not a rarity for me to look at old pictures and think that a different focus would have worked better (Then again I am no great photographer. For all I know others are never feel this need. So take that with a pinch of salt)
- thomasgerbe 15y ago
  I'm a casual photographer too. The advantage I see in the future is that you are 'guaranteed' a potentially sharp picture. Even when I do portraits with a wide aperture (1.2/1.4) there are times when I miss the focus on a tiny detail that I wish was more in focus. And since I prefer doing candid poses, redoing a situation just isn't that preferable. For sports or wildlife, I imagine it can be hard to focus too, sometimes just missing a shot of a bird because of a split second. It does make me wonder how the motion blur on this would work.
- tincholio 15y ago
  This might be a bit far into the future, considering the speed and resolution deficiencies that these first products are bound to have, but in the case of sports and nature photography, this would allow greatly improve the ratio of keepers to frames shot, by making those otherwise perfect but slightly out of focus shots viable. Even with the amazing AF systems available today, a significant number of frames don't have perfect focus. This could provide a solution for that problem.
schwabacher 15y ago
One awesome use for this technology is in microscopes! Instead of having to focus on each slide, slides can be run through much faster, photographed once, and interesting objects (like cells in a culture) can be found by processing afterwards. And even cooler IMO, is that a display panel with proportionately sized microlenses can be used (after a little image processing) to recreate the light field for a glasses free 3d display.
ricardobeat 15y ago
I remember seeing this "news" years ago... edit: here's the article from 2005 http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ The company that flourished from this research in 2008: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/refocus-imaging http://www.crunchbase.com/company/refocus-imaging And another startup already doing this for mobile phones: http://dvice.com/archives/2011/02/pelican-imaging.php http://dvice.com/archives/2011/02/pelican-imaging.php
- awarzzkktsyfj 15y ago
  The article is about a company named Lytro. 'Refocus Imaging' is the previous name of Lytro.
jaekwon 15y ago
can this light field tech be used in reverse to create 3d holographic images?
benjoffe 15y ago
Combine this with eye tracking (to the level that my focal depth can be detected) and an automatic lens over my monitor and you'd have a pretty immersive picture.
dennisgorelik 15y ago
These guys clearly target investors money, not consumers. 1) Lots of hype long before the product is released. 2) Ignoring market trend (consumers prefer smartphone integration over picture quality). 3) Instead of focusing on refining and selling technology, they want to reinvent the wheel and produce their own camera. I'd say that investors would lose lots of money on that venture.
- rooshdi 15y ago
  I'd say that investors would lose lots of money on that venture. I'd bet against that. They definitely solve a problem people have with taking focused photos and I see this technology becoming even more popular as it becomes integrated into videos. Just the other day I tried to take a quick photo of my niece and cat playing, and trust me when I tell you it was a real hassle trying to keep them in focus. This issue is just one of the many that can be solved with this technology. Even if there isn't strong demand for their own camera, they still should be able to license the technology to camera makers down the road and eventually integrate it into the smartphone market.
  - dennisgorelik 15y ago
    I'm not saying that technology would be useless. It might be at least somewhat useful. What I'm saying is that this particular business approach would fail (too much hype, not focusing on teams' advantages, ignoring customers' preferences). Investors would over-invest, but business would not get enough revenue to pay them back.
    - rooshdi 15y ago
      Investors would over-invest, but business would not get enough revenue to pay them back. We shall see, but just for the fact their product and technology improves a previous experience in such an obvious way, I have much less of a problem seeing this company receiving a lot of hype and funding than say Color, for example.
sajid 15y ago
Raytrix already have a plenoptic camera on the market: http://raytrix.de/index.php/r11.185.html http://raytrix.de/index.php/r11.185.html
humanfromearth 15y ago
Doesn't Magic Lantern already do this? I mean the Focus Bracketing shoots 3 (or maybe more) pictures as fast as the camera is able to do it at different focal distances. You just make sure the depth of field is wide enough to cover the distances between those points and you should have a similar effect.
revorad 15y ago
This sounds very exciting. To play the devil's advocate however, on most of the example photos on Lytro's site, you really only need two points of focus - roughly near and far. Clicking on those two shows you everything there is to see in a picture. If someone comes up with software to allow refocusing on two distance points with existing photos, they could eat Lytro's lunch. Can Picasa do something like this?
- rythie 15y ago
  If you have a photo that's all in focus (i.e. f15 aperture or something) you can throw parts out later with using masks in a photo editing tool, though it's time consuming. I'd suggest you could get a similar effect with a camera that had two or three lenses using different focal lengths. Fujifilm already released a camera with two lenses: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092209fujifilm3D.asp http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092209fujifilm3D.asp so it's just a software modification for that.
  - tintin 15y ago
    Using a photo where all is in focus you only need a depth-map to process the blur. I think something like the Kinect is making this possible already.
- dj_axl 15y ago
  According to Wikipedia this is called "focus stacking", combining depths of field to create a larger depth of field. The page lists a number of apps/plugins that blend photos to create this effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking
lolaa 15y ago
I’ve just joined here and wanted to say hi to all of you! I really hope to give something back to this board.http://www.brigitte-voyance.com http://www.brigitte-voyance.com
funnyandspicy 15y ago
There are many other techniques for computational cameras. But what about these ad video! http://funnyandspicy.com/3d-advertisement-which-is-utterly-limitless-and-totally-unforgettable-watch-it http://funnyandspicy.com/3d-advertisement-which-is-utterly-l...
ralfd 15y ago
See also the discussion three weeks ago on hn: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2596377 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2596377 There is also an (unrelated) iPhone App by the inventor for playing with depth of field: http://sites.google.com/site/marclevoy/ http://sites.google.com/site/marclevoy/
erikpukinskis 15y ago
Once it can capture high speed video of the light field, so that you can actually change the timing and exposure of each shot, as well as the focus... then we'll really be somewhere. Then you can just aim the camera, click the button some time shortly after something cool happens, and go back and get the perfect shot. Hell, capture a 360 degree panorama and you can even aim after the fact!
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Now just give me this in full stereoscopic, hi-res, for my cellphone. With video. Of course (hopefully), that's version 4 or 5. This initial roll-out is looking great! Can't wait to play around with one of the units in the local photo shop. Looking at the demos, I wonder what the depth-of-field is? Is it entirely calculable, or is it just a few feet and then the user sets the target? It looks like it is tiny, but I'm guessing it's set that way to show off the cool features of the technology.
epo 15y ago
Another Segway? Lets see if any reviewers ever get their hands on one.
romansanchez 15y ago
Props to the innovation, but in terms of reaching the consumer market I doubt the appeal will suffice for widespread reach. Even if it did, a licensing deal would be more appropriate just for the sake of them investing in the innovation which is what they're good at, not distribution.
mikecane 15y ago
Foveon was supposed to revolutionize digital photography too. Hell, there was even a book written about it.
SocratesV 15y ago
Didn't Adobe showcased the same technology in September 2009? Of course they haven't delivered a consumer product with it yet... But neither has this company. Let's wait and see...
deleted 15y ago
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ugh 15y ago
It's possible to buy a light field camera right now, for example from a German compamy named Raytrix (http://raytrix.de/index.php/home.181.html http://raytrix.de/index.php/home.181.html). I don't know whether they are the only example or whether there are other companies. They don't name a price on their website (write them to find out) and, looking at the applications they are naming on their website (http://www.raytrix.de/index.php/applications.html http://www.raytrix.de/index.php/applications.html), they certainly do not target consumers. Here are their camera models if you are interested: http://www.raytrix.de/index.php/models.html http://www.raytrix.de/index.php/models.html
mortenjorck 15y ago
How closely is Lytro's method related to Adobe's Magic Lens demonstrated last summer? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EI75wPL0nU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EI75wPL0nU
MasterScrat 15y ago
I think some kind of Ken Burn effect with transitions between the different planes would make a good screensaver.

Very nice. But it leaves me wondering about a couple of things: (1) Given the info captured by the camera, can we, without further human input, create an image in which everything is in focus? (2) What the heck are these people thinking? Going into the camera business? That means that, in order to get my hands on this technology, I am stuck with whatever zillions of other design decisions they made. One product. No competition. No multiple companies trying different ways to integrate this idea into a product. And if this company goes belly-up, then the good ol' patent laws mean that the tech is just gone for more than a decade. <sigh> Please license this. P.S. FTA: > Once images are captured, they can be posted to Facebook and shared via any modern Web browser, including mobile devices such as the iPhone. Surely there must be a more straightforward, but still understandable to non-techies, way to say "the result is an ordinary image file".

shadowpwner 15y ago
This technology has been around in research articles for at least 15 years. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=light+field+photography&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=0 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=light+field+ph...
- pgbovine 15y ago
  true, but that's usually the amount of time it takes for many research technologies to come to fruition as products.
  - shadowpwner 15y ago
    Apologies if I wasn't clear, I was referring to the above poster's comment about this technology being patented.
thijsterlouw 15y ago
The image quality seems a bit low (low contrast/greyish, lots of grain), but the concept is very cool. I also see lots of artifacts (horizontal lines) in several of the demo images: http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery
mechanical_fish 15y ago
A. Yes, I'd imagine so, within reason. Makes for a less interesting demo, though - we've seen lots of images with large focal depth, and lots of images with a narrower depth of focus used to call out one thing, but we've never seen snapshots which you can refocus after they are taken. This is seriously awesome. B. This tech isn't going anywhere. If the camera succeeds they might license it. If the camera fails they will surely try to license it. Note also that the technique is apparently not wholly new so the key patents are already running down. And your point about all those design choices that go into the camera cuts both ways. If they license this tech to a consumer electronics company that flubs the execution they will lose money, as the lousy execution will reflect badly on the tech and will prevent it from getting popular sooner. (The sooner every camera buyer wants this tech, the more profits there will be before the patents expire.) In a world consisting mainly of (a) Apple and (b) hardware companies that cannot design software to save their lives, keeping control of your own fate seems wise. The popularity of this technique among the general public will presumably depend crucially on the UI, both when taking the photo and when displaying it. Better to screw that up yourself than outsource the screwing up to someone else. ;)
andrewflnr 15y ago
Re (1), the guy in the video gives a couple demonstrations of focusing everything in an image. It seems reasonable to assume it could be automated, if that's what you're asking. And for what it's worth, the just-one-design thing has worked out pretty well for Apple.
wisty 15y ago
(1) - cameras already do this. Photography 101 - if you use a small apature, everything is in focus (minus diffraction and motion blur). Cheap lenses (like most cellphones) have low apertures, and don't really need to focus. Expensive lenses (like the iPhone 4 lens) often have high apertures, which let you take faster photos, and artistically blur stuff. Photographers don't like to do this, as blurring the background draws your attention to the subject.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  > Cheap lenses (like most cellphones) have low apertures, and don't really need to focus. Some companies seem to follow this idea and then, surprise surprise, barcode scanning app doesn't really work on my phone because someone decided not to install AF with the camera :/.
juiceandjuice 15y ago
You can have your car in any color you would like, as long as it's black.
liuliu 15y ago
(1). if my memory serves, they can do this by taking one pixel from each len and compose them into a total focus image.

shadowpwner 15y ago

The ability to focus afterwards is at the tradeoff of image size and quality, assuming they use a microlens array similar to the study located here: http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/. However, this is cleverly marketed towards the social media crowd, which has little use for high resolution photos.

pgbovine 15y ago

FYI Ren Ng (the founder of this company) won the 2006 ACM Doctoral Dissertation award for the research that turned into this product: http://awards.acm.org/doctoral_dissertation/ http://awards.acm.org/doctoral_dissertation/

ja27 15y ago
I found a couple of his publications: http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/fourierphoto/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/fourierphoto/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfmicroscope/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfmicroscope/
- dgreensp 15y ago
  I read these papers in grad school in 2007. Apparently he's been working on commercializing it ever since. This guy is the real deal.

gmatty 15y ago

I'm not an optics expert, but couldn't this be used to generate 3d depth maps? By stepping through each field depth you could find the edges of objects (by how clear they were at each depth) and map those edges onto a mesh. Effectively, doing what the kinect does but without any of the infrared projections...

ugh 15y ago
That’s definitely possible but low contrast regions without any edges to detect (e.g. a grey wall) are probably a problem.
m3koval 15y ago
You could probably do it, but it's not clear why it would be superior to stereo vision. Both approaches have the same pitfalls (CPU-intensive, need texture to work well) and stereo vision is largely a solved problem that works on commodity hardware.
- ugh 15y ago
  Because you don’t need a second sensor and a second lens?
  - alex_h 15y ago
    Well, to be fair, you actually need a whole array of (micro)lenses, so 2 lenses sounds pretty reasonable.
  - m3koval 15y ago
    Stereo vision does need two sensors and two lenses, where a micro-lens approach would only require one of each. However, the micro-lens camera would need a much larger and higher resolution sensor to produce a depth image that has the same resolution of the equivalent stereo camera. Ignoring the size of the sensor, producing two standard camera lenses will always be cheaper than producing an array of multiple (i.e. more than two) micro-lenses. This is doubly true considering that the micro-lens technology is already encumbered by patents. Finally, stereo is very well understood and has already been implemented on the GPU, on FPGAs and in ASICs (commonly known as STOC, Stereo On-Chip). I would personally love to see a demo of a micro-lens array used for creating a depth map, but I just don't see any practical advantages over stereo.

sp332 15y ago

This is much more useful than a simple depth map, since it works with translucent and amorphous things like steam, and other things that are hard to model with meshes like motes of dust. Also, if you have a shiny object, focusing at one depth might show the surface of the object in focus, but focusing at a different depth would show the reflection in focus.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

sbierwagen 15y ago

The downsides, which, of course, this press release doesn't mention: - Greatly, greatly reduced image resolution. Great big dedicated-camera sized lens and image sensor, cellphone-camera sized pictures. 1680×1050, at most. (1.76MP) - Color aberration. The microlenses have to be small, of course, so they're going to be made of single physical elements, rather than doublets.[1] - Various amusing aliasing problems. (note the fine horizontal lines on some of the demo shots) - Low FPS. Each image requires lots of processing, which means the CPU will have to chew on data for a while before you can take another image. - Proprietary toolchain for the dynamic images. Sure, cameras all have their particular RAW sensor formats, but this is also going to have its own output image format. No looking at thumbnails in file browsers. Photoshop won't have any idea what to do with it. Can't print it, of course. - - You can just produce a composite image that's sharp all over, but why not use a conventional camera with stopped-down[2] lens, then? - It's going to be really thrillingly expensive. This is a given, of course, with new camera technology. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublet_(lens) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublet_(lens) [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/stop#Effects_on_image_quality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/stop#Effects_on_image_quality

adelevie 15y ago
>cellphone-camera sized pictures. With 5+ megapixel cell phone cameras being common these days, what resolution do you imply in that sentence?
- sbierwagen 15y ago
  Why, back in my day phones didn't have cameras in 'em t'all! So, I don't know. 1280×720? 1680×1050 at most? They don't quote a megapixel number on their site, of course.
- wisty 15y ago
  Most cell phones have about 1 MP of signal, and 4 MP of noise.
MichaelApproved 15y ago
"- Low FPS. Each image requires lots of processing, which means the CPU will have to chew on data for a while before you can take another image." This will improve and processor speed improves eventually making it a nonissue. "- Proprietary toolchain for the dynamic images. Sure, cameras all have their particular RAW sensor formats, but this is also going to have its own output image format. No looking at thumbnails in file browsers. Photoshop won't have any idea what to do with it. Can't print it, of course." Sure, the raw image needs to be processed but you can export the focused product and do what you like, can't you? I can invasion a raw pic and a "best guess on what you'd like to be in focus" jpeg along with it. You can then improve on the jpeg by using the raw image to change what's in focus and recreate the jpeg.

clc 15y ago

This is a very interesting concept, I would be doubly interested to see this technology used for video in camcorders. However, I'm curious to see if they have the resources available to go toe to toe with Nikon, Canon, and Olympus. The camera industry is so competitive... and the life cycles on digital cameras are so quick nowadays. They may find it difficult to keep up.

thomasgerbe 15y ago
I don't think they need to keep up with the middle-to-high end yet. Given the choice of glass and bodies, I think most professionals would still keep with Nikon and Canon (especially for print). But for entry-level, I could see it being a killer because of the ease.
whatusername 15y ago
semi-pro's. Don't forget about Medium Format, etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_format_%28film%29#Digital_medium_format http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_format_%28film%29#Digita...

EdgarZambrana 15y ago

Imagine it being combined with technology that tracks your eyes motion, focusing the part of the image you're looking at automatically.

TeMPOraL 15y ago
Combine it with 3D glasses and maybe, just maybe, 3D movies will become bearable to watch.
dstein 15y ago
Then take it few steps further with a 360 degree fish eye lense strapped to your forehead, and some sort of VR helmet display for playback. Then take the camera while skiing, mountain climbing etc., and you would essentially have a brainscanning device like in the movies Strange Days, or Brainscan.

hdeo 15y ago

There may be an opportunity in 'doing something' with all the data collected ..

jianshen 15y ago

Looking forward, I see interesting applications of this tech in motion graphics and film. Where 3D movies have failed in forcing the user to focus on something, I can see this bringing photos and eventually film to life in ways that let the audience control more of what they want to experience. On the motion graphics side, I imagine all kinds of creative potential in compositing photography together with procedural or rendered graphics.

DLarsen 15y ago

As a geek, I think this is totally awesome. As a casual photographer, I'm less excited. I've pretty much got the hang of focusing my shots as I'm taking them. Why focus later what I can focus now?

shadowfox 15y ago
Well. One use would be to experiment with different focuses and pick the best later. It is not a rarity for me to look at old pictures and think that a different focus would have worked better (Then again I am no great photographer. For all I know others are never feel this need. So take that with a pinch of salt)
thomasgerbe 15y ago
I'm a casual photographer too. The advantage I see in the future is that you are 'guaranteed' a potentially sharp picture. Even when I do portraits with a wide aperture (1.2/1.4) there are times when I miss the focus on a tiny detail that I wish was more in focus. And since I prefer doing candid poses, redoing a situation just isn't that preferable. For sports or wildlife, I imagine it can be hard to focus too, sometimes just missing a shot of a bird because of a split second. It does make me wonder how the motion blur on this would work.
tincholio 15y ago
This might be a bit far into the future, considering the speed and resolution deficiencies that these first products are bound to have, but in the case of sports and nature photography, this would allow greatly improve the ratio of keepers to frames shot, by making those otherwise perfect but slightly out of focus shots viable. Even with the amazing AF systems available today, a significant number of frames don't have perfect focus. This could provide a solution for that problem.

schwabacher 15y ago

One awesome use for this technology is in microscopes! Instead of having to focus on each slide, slides can be run through much faster, photographed once, and interesting objects (like cells in a culture) can be found by processing afterwards. And even cooler IMO, is that a display panel with proportionately sized microlenses can be used (after a little image processing) to recreate the light field for a glasses free 3d display.

ricardobeat 15y ago

I remember seeing this "news" years ago... edit: here's the article from 2005 http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ The company that flourished from this research in 2008: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/refocus-imaging http://www.crunchbase.com/company/refocus-imaging And another startup already doing this for mobile phones: http://dvice.com/archives/2011/02/pelican-imaging.php http://dvice.com/archives/2011/02/pelican-imaging.php

awarzzkktsyfj 15y ago
The article is about a company named Lytro. 'Refocus Imaging' is the previous name of Lytro.

jaekwon 15y ago

can this light field tech be used in reverse to create 3d holographic images?

benjoffe 15y ago

Combine this with eye tracking (to the level that my focal depth can be detected) and an automatic lens over my monitor and you'd have a pretty immersive picture.

dennisgorelik 15y ago

These guys clearly target investors money, not consumers. 1) Lots of hype long before the product is released. 2) Ignoring market trend (consumers prefer smartphone integration over picture quality). 3) Instead of focusing on refining and selling technology, they want to reinvent the wheel and produce their own camera. I'd say that investors would lose lots of money on that venture.

rooshdi 15y ago
I'd say that investors would lose lots of money on that venture. I'd bet against that. They definitely solve a problem people have with taking focused photos and I see this technology becoming even more popular as it becomes integrated into videos. Just the other day I tried to take a quick photo of my niece and cat playing, and trust me when I tell you it was a real hassle trying to keep them in focus. This issue is just one of the many that can be solved with this technology. Even if there isn't strong demand for their own camera, they still should be able to license the technology to camera makers down the road and eventually integrate it into the smartphone market.
- dennisgorelik 15y ago
  I'm not saying that technology would be useless. It might be at least somewhat useful. What I'm saying is that this particular business approach would fail (too much hype, not focusing on teams' advantages, ignoring customers' preferences). Investors would over-invest, but business would not get enough revenue to pay them back.
  - rooshdi 15y ago
    Investors would over-invest, but business would not get enough revenue to pay them back. We shall see, but just for the fact their product and technology improves a previous experience in such an obvious way, I have much less of a problem seeing this company receiving a lot of hype and funding than say Color, for example.

sajid 15y ago

Raytrix already have a plenoptic camera on the market: http://raytrix.de/index.php/r11.185.html http://raytrix.de/index.php/r11.185.html

humanfromearth 15y ago

Doesn't Magic Lantern already do this? I mean the Focus Bracketing shoots 3 (or maybe more) pictures as fast as the camera is able to do it at different focal distances. You just make sure the depth of field is wide enough to cover the distances between those points and you should have a similar effect.

revorad 15y ago

This sounds very exciting. To play the devil's advocate however, on most of the example photos on Lytro's site, you really only need two points of focus - roughly near and far. Clicking on those two shows you everything there is to see in a picture. If someone comes up with software to allow refocusing on two distance points with existing photos, they could eat Lytro's lunch. Can Picasa do something like this?

rythie 15y ago
If you have a photo that's all in focus (i.e. f15 aperture or something) you can throw parts out later with using masks in a photo editing tool, though it's time consuming. I'd suggest you could get a similar effect with a camera that had two or three lenses using different focal lengths. Fujifilm already released a camera with two lenses: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092209fujifilm3D.asp http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092209fujifilm3D.asp so it's just a software modification for that.
- tintin 15y ago
  Using a photo where all is in focus you only need a depth-map to process the blur. I think something like the Kinect is making this possible already.
dj_axl 15y ago
According to Wikipedia this is called "focus stacking", combining depths of field to create a larger depth of field. The page lists a number of apps/plugins that blend photos to create this effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking

lolaa 15y ago

I’ve just joined here and wanted to say hi to all of you! I really hope to give something back to this board.http://www.brigitte-voyance.com http://www.brigitte-voyance.com

funnyandspicy 15y ago

There are many other techniques for computational cameras. But what about these ad video! http://funnyandspicy.com/3d-advertisement-which-is-utterly-limitless-and-totally-unforgettable-watch-it http://funnyandspicy.com/3d-advertisement-which-is-utterly-l...

ralfd 15y ago

See also the discussion three weeks ago on hn: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2596377 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2596377 There is also an (unrelated) iPhone App by the inventor for playing with depth of field: http://sites.google.com/site/marclevoy/ http://sites.google.com/site/marclevoy/

erikpukinskis 15y ago

Once it can capture high speed video of the light field, so that you can actually change the timing and exposure of each shot, as well as the focus... then we'll really be somewhere. Then you can just aim the camera, click the button some time shortly after something cool happens, and go back and get the perfect shot. Hell, capture a 360 degree panorama and you can even aim after the fact!

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Now just give me this in full stereoscopic, hi-res, for my cellphone. With video. Of course (hopefully), that's version 4 or 5. This initial roll-out is looking great! Can't wait to play around with one of the units in the local photo shop. Looking at the demos, I wonder what the depth-of-field is? Is it entirely calculable, or is it just a few feet and then the user sets the target? It looks like it is tiny, but I'm guessing it's set that way to show off the cool features of the technology.

epo 15y ago

Another Segway? Lets see if any reviewers ever get their hands on one.

romansanchez 15y ago

Props to the innovation, but in terms of reaching the consumer market I doubt the appeal will suffice for widespread reach. Even if it did, a licensing deal would be more appropriate just for the sake of them investing in the innovation which is what they're good at, not distribution.

mikecane 15y ago

Foveon was supposed to revolutionize digital photography too. Hell, there was even a book written about it.

SocratesV 15y ago

Didn't Adobe showcased the same technology in September 2009? Of course they haven't delivered a consumer product with it yet... But neither has this company. Let's wait and see...

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ugh 15y ago

It's possible to buy a light field camera right now, for example from a German compamy named Raytrix (http://raytrix.de/index.php/home.181.html http://raytrix.de/index.php/home.181.html). I don't know whether they are the only example or whether there are other companies. They don't name a price on their website (write them to find out) and, looking at the applications they are naming on their website (http://www.raytrix.de/index.php/applications.html http://www.raytrix.de/index.php/applications.html), they certainly do not target consumers. Here are their camera models if you are interested: http://www.raytrix.de/index.php/models.html http://www.raytrix.de/index.php/models.html

mortenjorck 15y ago

How closely is Lytro's method related to Adobe's Magic Lens demonstrated last summer? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EI75wPL0nU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EI75wPL0nU

MasterScrat 15y ago

I think some kind of Ken Burn effect with transitions between the different planes would make a good screensaver.