Thanks to HJ for the links!
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Basler Presents ToF Cameras with Panasonic Sensors
German industrial and machine vision camera vendor Basler has presented a series of ToF cameras at Vision Show in Stuttgart. The new cameras are said to provide a monochrome or color 2D image together with per-pixel depth information:
Thanks to HJ for the links!
Thanks to HJ for the links!
I thought Panasonic discontinued its work on ToF-Imagers. Does anyone know, if color and depth pixels are on the same imager or if they are separate (like the Kinect)? And did they develop their own ToF-Pixel or is it connected e.g. to Mesa?
ReplyDeleteMesa was bought by Heptagon, so don't think it is that.
ReplyDeleteMy contacts at Panasonic last year said that while the D-Imager was being discontinued that TOF development within Panasonic would continue, so this could be it I suppose - maybe they cut a deal.
Intersting shadow around the hand in the color image.
ReplyDeleteHow does it compare to Kinect 2?
ReplyDeletethe shadow is probably caused by pixel cross talk. We found similar issue when testing their sensor
ReplyDeletePixel cross talk in the ToF camera? I was wondering if it could be artifacts from spatial regularization of the depth map (or some similar operation)
ReplyDeleteI think it could be rather a DOF problem. In pixel crosstalk in ToF pixels is fairly unlikely (if properly designed) due to the typically "large" pixel sizes. But in order to get proper depth precision low f-number optics are employed what can moreover have significant impact on DOF. Of course some lateral filtering may be applied for noise reduction but that can hardly explain the artifacts in vicinity of the hand.
Delete- Andreas Süss
As much as I like this out-of-focus explanation, it can be readily checked from the "normal" image created by combining phase fields (often an optional output from a ToF camera).
DeleteWhile I understand Samsung's business decision to put the ToF work in the freezer, I do wish we had kept going. Well, if the market gets large enough, I guess the Samsung ToF work will come out of the freezer.
I think this is simply the "motion blur" effect, since they should use pulse accumulation to get final 3D signal. When the hand is moving, you will get the motion blur effect like that caused by a slow shutter ...
Delete-yang ni
Eric, rumor in Korea is that Samsung did restart their TOF group, but it is only a rumor.
ReplyDeleteWell there were at least two efforts inside Samsung Electronics. One was connected to pre-product R&D - that was the one that was dismantled. We did several TOF designs including the RGBZ sensor presented at ISSCC. The second was the effort in the Samsung Adv. Inst. of Tech (SAIT) which involved using the same pixel as TOF and for visible imaging, which needed a future switchable NIR filter (not part not well publicized). Could be the SAIT part is still going on, perhaps on a different track. If there is something going on in Sys LSI, then yay for Samsung, and not so good for all the TOF suppliers. Anyway, I have not been involved with Samsung now for nearly two years and don't know what is going on. Two years is a very long time at Samsung.
DeleteAnything on the pixel size?
ReplyDeleteThis picture is quite old. “The shadow around the hand” is literally a shadow effect. At that time, the prototype’s illumination was located adjacent to the sensor and lens. So there is a shadow on the wall with reduced accuracy. This has been solved meanwhile by the circular arrangement of the LEDs around the lens which can be seen in the news article: http://www.baslerweb.com/en/news-press/first-images-from-basler-time-of-flight-tof-cameras/33607
ReplyDeleteIn regard to the pixel size: this is a CCD sensor, 1/4" optical size, VGA resolution.
hey Martin, thanks. Martin is the guy who would know.
DeleteCould anyone can let me know MN34902BL sensor of Basler Camera?
ReplyDelete