Revolutionary 3D Camera for Smart Phones Set For Release In 2014

A radical new 3D-enabled smartphone array camera with the capability to capture 3D videos, as well as print and re-focus 3D images, has been tipped for release in 2014.

The camera, designed by San Francisco-based Pelican Imaging, is the first of its kind to capture video by way of recording depth information rather than direct light signals.

According to the company’s promotional video (see below), users will be able to travel around a captured scene ‘Matrix style’.

The 3D format is already well established within the smartphone world, the LG Optimus 3D being a prime example of where real-time recording is utilised, however this new smart camera boasts of being the first whereby 3D prints of a scene can be produced, as well as being one of the first to allow users to re-focus an image in a variety of different ways once an image has been captured.

It is a development of the Lytro light field camera, Pelican’s unique selling point being that it is much smaller and therefore able to integrate into existing phone models such as the previously mentioned LG Optimus 3D.

The LG Optimus 3D itself includes a 3D converter, whereby 2D images such as those produced in Google Earth can be converted into a three-dimensional image, so it is likely that the same technology could be applied to convert 2D images that the user has captured and saved on their phone in the past.

One issue that LG faced in the production of the Optimus 3D was achieving the highest possible resolution with available technology at the time, so the advent of this new hi-res camera will come as welcome news to LG and its Optimus customers. Whilst there is already talk of some phone companies already having invested in the Pelican technology others are likely to follow.

The overall concept has been dubbed ‘computational photography’ and Pelican incorporates 16 camera lenses that link up to a chip offering multiple sets of data that can are fused together when a picture is taken. The detail, according to some sources, is unlike anything witnessed before, with the software able to identify the edges of all objects in a shot, even including human hair. The benefit would not just be felt in 3D either, with the creation of superior quality two-dimensional shots also possible. This is achieved through the ability of the software to filter out certain ‘impure’ elements before they are actually recorded.

The world of smartphone picture taking may soon be about to change forever.