Definitely, it’s time to think beyond megapixel cameras and formulate a machine that could bring telescopic vision into the realms of common photography. While those conceived thus far, including gigapixels cameras used at the Pan-Starrs telescope and others used in drones, have a narrow field of view, the Scientists at Duke University have created an experimental camera that captures “still or video images with a billion pixels.” The camera under question lends extraordinary details and more than 30 times of data to images when compared to today’s best digital devices.
Dubbed as Aware-2, the prototype takes 18 seconds to click and record the picture data on a disk. The researchers could actually read the In and Out signs written on a parking garage a half-mile away, when they zoomed in into a pic clicked using the device.
The Duke device makes use of a spherical lens and 100 microcameras, each with a 14-megapixel sensor. The setup mixes 100 separate images clicked by these microcameras to create a highly detailed image.
As of now, the 100pounds machine requires large space and machinery to cool its electronic boards that definitely ask for a shrunken size and reduced power consumption. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has offered $25 million support to the research.
The team behind the research is hopeful of creating a 10-gigapixel color version by the Q4 of this year, and another 50-gigapixel one after that. If all goes all well, the limited edition, industrial-type gigapixel cameras will hit production lines in 2013.
Via: WSJ
