Whether you’re snapping photos on the best camera phone or using a proper camera, getting everything from the foreground to the background in focus is almost always out of the question. A new breakthrough, however, may soon make that a very real possibility.
Researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University have successfully developed a new kind of camera lens that offers spatially selective focusing, which can allow cameras to focus on an entire scene at once. A blog post about the development details that this tech can capture photos “where every detail, near and far, is perfectly sharp—from the flower petal right in front of you to the distant trees on the horizon.”
Unlike traditional cameras, which can only bring one flat layer of a scene into perfect focus at a time, the new computational lens uses a mix of optics and algorithms to “adjust its focus differently for every part of a scene.”
The resulting system uses two autofocus methods, Contrast-Detection Autofocus (CDAF) and Phase-Detection Autofocus (PDAF), to automatically determine “which parts of the image should be sharp,” essentially giving each part of the picture its own focus knob.
What this could mean for future cameras
This computational lens has the potential to pave the way for a new range of smartphone cameras that capture sharper photos with less background or foreground blur. In addition, the technology has other potential applications, such as improving how microscopes focus on objects, helping robots and self-driving cars see details at all distances, and making AR/VR look much more realistic.
The team first presented its findings at the International Conference on Computer Vision earlier this year, where they received a Best Paper Honorable Mention recognition. While the technology is still in the research stage, it will be interesting to see how and when it makes its way into real-world cameras and consumer devices.