5 ms·

Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope

35 points by taivo 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago
Innovations like these will happen a lot more often once there's a proper hardware platform for this, like ARA is.
- collyw 12y ago
  What's ARA? Sounds like it might be interesting.
brbcoding 12y ago
This reminds me of this Kickstarter project that I backed a while back: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/968523355/micro-phone-lens-cell-phone-based-microscope https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/968523355/micro-phone-l... This one just sticks to your phone rather than requiring an enclosure, but only has a max zoom of 60x (or 15x without phone zoom).
- shocks 12y ago
  'Phone zoom' is all software, so it wouldn't be true 60x.
  - dspillett 12y ago
    That depends on the phone. Some Nokia devices (for one example I know of: no doubt there exist other cameras and camera phones that do something similar) have a higher resolution CCD than they need for unzoomed images and use the extra resolution for noise reduction and such when scaling the image down to the final size - so with zoom you genuinely get more detail but possibly at the expense of extra signal noise.
coreymgilmore 12y ago
Very cool. The usefulness to poorer reguina of the world and for education could be immense. Combine this lens with the paper microscope from a few weeks ago (http://www.ted.com/talks/manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_that_folds_like_origami http://www.ted.com/talks/manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_t...).
Too 12y ago
Discussion from last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7657521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7657521
- dang 12y ago
  That discussion wasn't very extensive so we won't kill this one as a dupe.
jebblue 12y ago
We saw this on AOL On on ROKU last week-end, pretty cool.
RankingMember 12y ago
Digging these new cheap microscope concepts (this is and the as-of-yet unbuyable paper microscope). Just reading about them moved me to build this contraption someone linked to in the paper microscope thread comments: http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-microscope-conversion/ http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-mic... It's pretty cool, but if you build one, definitely use caution and wear eye protection when drilling through the Plexiglas.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Seconded on the eye protection. Also, drill slow (without too much pressure) and drill a pilot hole so you stay centered. There are special plexiglass drills, those make life a bit easier, a glass bit works as well (even better, actually).
makmanalp 12y ago
If anyone was frustrated at the lack of sample images like me: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-5-5-1626&id=284161#g004 http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-5-5-1...
- skierscott 12y ago
  And an imgur gallery[1] with the two examples. [1]:http://imgur.com/a/0IQ5v http://imgur.com/a/0IQ5v
spyder 12y ago
Looks like the similar Foldscope is more powerful because it can do up to 2000x magnification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldscope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldscope
- taivo 12y ago
  In terms of magnification, yes, but there are also many other variables that can be relevant, so I guess it's good to have multiple cheap designs to choose from, depending on the goal and circumstances. For example Foldscope seems to be using ball lens, which indeed gives higher magnification, but probably also suffers more from aberration, may be trickier to fix firmly and precisely into the microscope housing compared to the lens that are already created on a flat plate, etc., so for those tasks where lower magnification is sufficient or preferred the droplet lens might sometimes be more suitable.
dvdt 12y ago
This is awesome work. I just want to point out that it's pretty much a marketing lie to say that the lens gives you 160x magnification. Sort of like saying how digital zoom gives you magnification on a camera. A non-linkbait title would also report the numerical aperture of their microscope. From their paper, it looks like the new lens performs comparably to a research grade 10x 0.25NA objective.
collyw 12y ago
OK, kind of cool, but would you not be better with a real camera on the end rather than a half arsed phone camera? I am aware that the lens is usually what makes camera phones poor in comparison to regular cameras, but I still find my phone camera barley usable, and the quality crap compared to my point and shoot camera. I am sure it isn't only down to the lens.

35 points by taivo 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago

Innovations like these will happen a lot more often once there's a proper hardware platform for this, like ARA is.

collyw 12y ago
What's ARA? Sounds like it might be interesting.

brbcoding 12y ago

This reminds me of this Kickstarter project that I backed a while back: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/968523355/micro-phone-lens-cell-phone-based-microscope https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/968523355/micro-phone-l... This one just sticks to your phone rather than requiring an enclosure, but only has a max zoom of 60x (or 15x without phone zoom).

shocks 12y ago
'Phone zoom' is all software, so it wouldn't be true 60x.
- dspillett 12y ago
  That depends on the phone. Some Nokia devices (for one example I know of: no doubt there exist other cameras and camera phones that do something similar) have a higher resolution CCD than they need for unzoomed images and use the extra resolution for noise reduction and such when scaling the image down to the final size - so with zoom you genuinely get more detail but possibly at the expense of extra signal noise.

coreymgilmore 12y ago

Very cool. The usefulness to poorer reguina of the world and for education could be immense. Combine this lens with the paper microscope from a few weeks ago (http://www.ted.com/talks/manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_that_folds_like_origami http://www.ted.com/talks/manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_t...).

Too 12y ago

Discussion from last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7657521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7657521

dang 12y ago
That discussion wasn't very extensive so we won't kill this one as a dupe.

jebblue 12y ago

We saw this on AOL On on ROKU last week-end, pretty cool.

RankingMember 12y ago

Digging these new cheap microscope concepts (this is and the as-of-yet unbuyable paper microscope). Just reading about them moved me to build this contraption someone linked to in the paper microscope thread comments: http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-microscope-conversion/ http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-mic... It's pretty cool, but if you build one, definitely use caution and wear eye protection when drilling through the Plexiglas.

jacquesm 12y ago
Seconded on the eye protection. Also, drill slow (without too much pressure) and drill a pilot hole so you stay centered. There are special plexiglass drills, those make life a bit easier, a glass bit works as well (even better, actually).

makmanalp 12y ago

If anyone was frustrated at the lack of sample images like me: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-5-5-1626&id=284161#g004 http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-5-5-1...

skierscott 12y ago
And an imgur gallery[1] with the two examples. [1]:http://imgur.com/a/0IQ5v http://imgur.com/a/0IQ5v

spyder 12y ago

Looks like the similar Foldscope is more powerful because it can do up to 2000x magnification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldscope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldscope

taivo 12y ago
In terms of magnification, yes, but there are also many other variables that can be relevant, so I guess it's good to have multiple cheap designs to choose from, depending on the goal and circumstances. For example Foldscope seems to be using ball lens, which indeed gives higher magnification, but probably also suffers more from aberration, may be trickier to fix firmly and precisely into the microscope housing compared to the lens that are already created on a flat plate, etc., so for those tasks where lower magnification is sufficient or preferred the droplet lens might sometimes be more suitable.

dvdt 12y ago

This is awesome work. I just want to point out that it's pretty much a marketing lie to say that the lens gives you 160x magnification. Sort of like saying how digital zoom gives you magnification on a camera. A non-linkbait title would also report the numerical aperture of their microscope. From their paper, it looks like the new lens performs comparably to a research grade 10x 0.25NA objective.

collyw 12y ago

OK, kind of cool, but would you not be better with a real camera on the end rather than a half arsed phone camera? I am aware that the lens is usually what makes camera phones poor in comparison to regular cameras, but I still find my phone camera barley usable, and the quality crap compared to my point and shoot camera. I am sure it isn't only down to the lens.