{"id":21571,"date":"2017-08-08T16:03:41","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T20:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=21571"},"modified":"2022-03-16T12:30:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T16:30:34","slug":"stanford-uc-san-diego-4d-camera-virtual-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/stanford-uc-san-diego-4d-camera-virtual-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanford and UC San Diego Researchers Develop 4D Camera That Could Enhance Robotic Vision and Augmented and Virtual Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

A team of researchers from Stanford University and University of California, San Diego have <\/span>developed a brand new kind of camera<\/span><\/a> with robotics in mind. This new camera will remove a key challenge robotics engineers face today in terms of capturing images. Digital cameras, even the top-of-the-line models, are not well-suited for capturing the wide field of view a robot needs to move around in a given space, such as in a self-driving car.<\/span><\/p>\n

The University Network (TUN) spoke with <\/span>Donald Dansereau<\/span><\/a>, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford and first author on this project, to get his take on the new proof-of-concept camera. <\/span><\/p>\n

Dansereau drew parallels to the eyes of living organisms when he described the camera to The University Network (TUN). <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike the human eye, the camera captures a curved image to offer a wide field of view: its 140-degree view is roughly in line with human vision,\u201d he said. \u201cFor depth perception, it’s more like an insect’s compound eye, using many smaller views of the world to make sense of depth, shape, and higher order effects like reflections and transparency. This is done with an array of hundreds of thousands of tiny lenslets, packed together in honeycomb fashion, which turns the camera into a light field camera.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A light field camera, also referred to as a \u201c4D\u201d camera, captures an image as well as information about the light hitting the camera. This allows the user of the camera to adjust the focus of an image after it has been taken.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a wide field of view simplifies a lot of jobs in robotics, and light field capture simplifies tasks where 3D scene motion would normally complicate perception,\u201d Dansereau explained to TUN. \u201cTaken together, this camera is a great fit for jobs requiring close-up interaction with complex scenes, on a tight time and power budget. Drones landing, delivery robots, self-driving cars watching out for pedestrians, cyclists and other nearby cars, these kinds of autonomy are much easier with a wide-FOV light field camera.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n