New Digital Camera like Human Eye

[JeffGreene]

What do you think? It looks interesting!

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/32910.php

Scientists have been working on this for about the last 20 years according to the article, and have just recently licked some of the technical issues.

 

[Tuolumne]

Now I might be willing to trade my old R-D1 in for one of those.

/T

 

[Al Patterson]

I wonder...

I wonder...

What sort of camera one could make without a mirror and this type of sensor. Unless they are trying to build replacement eyes or something.

 

[Migracer]

After reading the Article i decided to do a test. Close one eye and take a look at the resulting image, Look at as if you were studying a photograph. With the exception of those of us with large noses that block part of the picture it becomes evident that the brain can process our fish eye view into useful vision but to get full use and get the depth of field right you really need the second eye. The amount of storage needed for such images is something only the brain can process, store and use at this point I suspect this technology is still a long way off.

 

[ben_m]

This comes from a Nature paper a few weeks ago, it was featured on the cover.

The design is only like the human eye in the respect that it has a curved sensor. The advantage of this is that they can use a single element lens (like the human eye)- and so save some money on lens manufacturing. Single element lenses have a curved focal plane, so the edges are soft on a flat sensor. This new design is aimed at very cheap low resolution cameras- to make a high resolution curved sensor (and micro lenses, and bayer filter) is much more expensive than the few extra lens elements to get satisfactorily flat field lens. Even this 0.0003 megapixel sensor must have cost a lot to produce.

One good use of a design copied from the human eye (much more useful than this curved sensor, if you ask me) is the inflatable lenses used in glasses for people in developing countries. The lens consists of two layers of clear plastic, with liquid between them. To set the glasses to the right strength required by the patient, you just inject or withdraw liquid, and the lens because more or less curved. The human eye's lens is pulled into a thinner lens by muscles around its edge, and it springs back to being a thick lens when they are relaxed. As you age the lens becomes less elastic, and so you lose the near-sight ability.

Human sight is so good because of the brain's ability to reconstruct 'reality' from a small high resolution spot scanning the environment. If you keep you eye perfectly still, you can only see detail in a very small area, although you have a very low resolution version of a very wide view. Even this wide view degrades towards the edges, and colour perception drops. I think the eye is most sensitive to blue at the far periphery.

I guess the brain's way of imaging could be used to improve the design of a camera- it could scan the whole field of view at low resolution, detect contrast, and re-scan those areas at higher resolution, and so not waste pixels describing large areas of blue sky, for example. I guess this is similar to how image compression is working, but it could be implemented at the point of capture.

 

[PaulDalex]

I published a paper in 2007 about retinal curvature and geometry of image formation. In revised version the paper has appeared on the Journal "Brain Research":
P. d'Alessandro , "On Global Geometry of Image on Eye's Back”, LNCS 4729, BVAI 2007, Springer Verlag, Berlin, 2007;

Revised version: "Retinal Curvature and geometry of image formation" Brain Research, August, 2008.

In the paper I suggested a device with hemispherical focus back. I was unaware of these attepts despite the usual searches with MathSciNet etc.

The eye and its optics are much more complex. There are many optical surfaces and the lens is altogether aspherical, variable geometry, and gradient index of refraction. There are many other issues involved in our visual perception, which I analyze in my paper.
I think that the cameras should be true to our visual world which is light years far away from current technology. Thus I hope that future cameras will use curved backs like our eye and will encompass many other techniques that nature adopted in our eye.

Cheers

Paul

 

[Migracer]

I published a paper in 2007 about retinal curvature and geometry of image formation. In revised version the paper has appeared on the Journal "Brain Research":
P. d'Alessandro , "On Global Geometry of Image on Eye's Back”, LNCS 4729, BVAI 2007, Springer Verlag, Berlin, 2007;

Revised version: "Retinal Curvature and geometry of image formation" Brain Research, August, 2008.

In the paper I suggested a device with hemispherical focus back. I was unaware of these attepts despite the usual searches with MathSciNet etc.

The eye and its optics are much more complex. There are many optical surfaces and the lens is altogether aspherical, variable geometry, and gradient index of refraction. There are many other issues involved in our visual perception, which I analyze in my paper.
I think that the cameras should be true to our visual world which is light years far away from current technology. Thus I hope that future cameras will use curved backs like our eye and will encompass many other techniques that nature adopted in our eye.

Cheers

Paul

Thanks to Paul and Ben to giving a more detail explanation this lowly engineer could supply. The concept of curved camera backs to get the full image from a wide field lens is well know and used in certain applications. See this link. http://captured-starlight.blogspot.com/2006/12/6x18-camera-with-curved-film-plane.html
I was blessed to have been present with a couple of genuine geniuses, My uncle Ernie Caparros, best know for director of cinematography on the Miracle Worker and of course my Dad Dr Rogelio Caparros, experiments with optics was an on going project. From making hi-bread telephotos to wide field lenses for special effects and for taking images from telescopes. One thing I remember was modifying camera backs to a curved shape for capturing the image and then to projected to get the clearest image in a wide and high format, sort of a Panavision on steroids. Many people found the effect a little overwhelming. Again the brain is trained in processing things one way. I am unable to sit and watch a 3d wide screen projection, I get sick It does not seem to bother my wife and daughter so it is an individual brain interpretation. In the end the output for consumption has to be a visual compromise that is acceptable to the majority. I have extreme [FONT=&quot]peripheral[/FONT] vision that in my auto racing is an advantage just don't sit me in front of a screen that wraps around. I can go on for hours.
Research into vision is very important for many reason. Digital imaging vision is something that will need an interface to the human brain to make the next quantum leap. What i do see as a possibility in photography is a flexible focus lens combined with a curved capture media. Any one interested in [FONT=&quot]collaborating[/FONT] on such a project feel free to contact me.

 

[PaulDalex]

As I explain in my paper the curvature (Gauss curvature as is called in Mathematics) of a section of cylinder is zero (intuitively this is due to the fact that you can lay such surface on a plane). The eye has an hemispherical back that has a non-zero Gauss curvature. Gauss curvature is what makes the crucial difference.
In my paper there are many rather narrative parts that explain the mathematical results and discuss various issues. I guess and hope that anybody could take a look at it and, even skipping (unless he/she has a mathematical orientation) the formal parts, make some sense from what I had to say.
As to further research it will depends on reactions and funding. As a mathematician I have almost no funds, no labs no coworkers.
All the best
Paul