Friday, January 17, 2014

PMD Presents World's Smallest ToF Camera

PMD presented its new CamBoard pico XS in private suite at CES, together with PMD's middleware nimble UX. The company says that it's the smallest depth sensor worldwide, as far as they know. Its key specs:

  • The size of the pico XS is 4mm x 15.5mm x 39.5mm.
  • It uses a laser illumination, 850nm and modulation frequency of 80MHz.
  • It´s equipped with a standard MIPI compliant interface - ready for integration into devices.
  • Self heating is only up to 10° C
  • Power consumption is typically < 50mW (max 350mW)

Engadget publishes a video from the private demo:




10 comments:

  1. What's the resolution/number of pixels?

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    Replies
    1. It uses Infineon IRS1010C sensor with 160x120 pixels.

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  2. I don't see any depth in the video. It looks like it can only separate hand from background but no gradients on the hand. Seems useless

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    Replies
    1. I don't think you see the depth data there - this is processed and as you see it highlights the hands red and blue.

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    2. Indeed - you don't see colour coded depth information in the Video. The colour just marks the right and left hand. However, the 3D data of the pico xs is used (and very much needed) to extract the hands positions (palm, fingers, etc...) in space.

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  3. Replies
    1. It's not about marking hands or measuring depth in that application, it's about detection natural gestures to interact with devices. That makes sense in a bunch of applications, so there definately is use for sensors like this. BTW: The size of the camera is amazing to integrate this into devices.

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  4. What is the depth resolution and frame rate at 350mW?

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    Replies
    1. Engadget article referred in the post says:

      "Pico XS requires less than 50mW typically (at 25fps) and 350mW max (up to 45fps). "

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    2. The depth noise depends on the reflectivity of the object and eventually background light and can be just a few millimeters.

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