Sharp claims mobile 3D, HD cam 'first' Sharp has claimed an industry first: a wee camera module capable of grabbing stereoscopic 3D images at 1280 x 720p HD resolution. The best bit: it's for mobile phones. Sharp 3D mobile cam module We say phones, but they'd be fairly chunky ones. The Sharp 3D module is small, but not as compact as a regular phone camera. Sharp …
Well, it is only a prototype, though it might not hurt to pop them a quick email pondering on how close-set the CCDs seem to be. Particularly as the average phone is easily tall enough to cover most people's eyespan when turned landscape-wise. Problem is that the legacy of film cameras leads people to expect the lens to be roughly in the middle third, so they may end up holding it such to block one or both sensors if they're mounted at the extreme ends.
Shouldn't be, for example, too difficult to replace part of the solid PCB with a long ribbon cable so one sensor and the main electronics can be mounted at one end of the case, and the other sensor remote-linked at the other.
On the other hand it may either be that they're taking a reduced strength of effect as the price of compact packaging; plus as they're unlikely to be able to rotate in respect to one another, this is one way of optimising it for the close-range duties that phone cameras are better suited to and mostly used for - otherwise you may get enough of a disparity between the two images that the effect is lost altogether because there isn't ENOUGH overlap with near-field pics. (They may also be mounted with a pre-set non-parallel relative view angle that converges, say, 10ft away, and anything between 10ft and infinity therefore being separated by a certain amount in the OPPOSITE direction).
Don't worry, I'm sure the boffins are sorting it ;)
Very cool idea in any case - can has?
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