This article was originally published on www.display-central.com.
At the June Computex Show in Taiwan, Intel announced a new depth sensing 3D camera that appears to be similar to the Kinect sensor offered by Microsoft. But in a new interview with the company, Intel revealed more about their plans for the technology, including its integration into laptops and ultrabooks, and perhaps eventually moving into tablets and smartphones. The stand alone sensor should become available in Q3’13 with integrated devices starting to roll out in the second half of 2014.
The new stand alone peripheral depth sensor/3D camera system is called Senz3D and has been developed in cooperation with Creative. The device will be offered with Intel’s Gesture Camera Developer’s Kit. While the Kinect allows gestures to control a game at distance of feet from the device, the Senz3D system is aimed at PC interaction distances more like arms length away from the device. The Senz3D also includes a stereo microphone so users should be able to control the PC using voice, gesture and even facial movements. Kind of sounds like the Leap Motion sensor, doesn’t it?
At the Computex event, Intel also showed how this device can integrate with Skype to simulate a more accurate face-to-face conversation. In a recent post on 3D video calls over Skype, we noted that the Microsoft-owned company is developing the technology, but feels the 3D acquisition technology is not yet mature enough. It seems clear that this was probably one of the technologies they have looked at, plus others they have played with in the lab.
Intel’s initiative goes well beyond just video calls however, and is envisioned to be able to support 3D printing applications, education of students, track emotions and much more. For example, according to Anil Nanduri , director of perceptual products & solutions at Intel, the webcam enhancements will help the computer understand a human better, bring new levels of interactivity to 3D games, and make webconferencing fun by blanking out the background and adding a green screen (so you can insert you own background).
Details of the camera solution have not revealed, but it appears to be a solution that is similar to Microsoft’s Kinect platform, which includes a 2D camera plus a depth sensor. But the shorter distance interaction is requiring a much higher resolution camera, so integration of this into PC platforms at a good price point may be challenging. In addition, Intel is working on is the processing and algorithms to be able to extract more useful information from this data.
In an IDG News article, Nanduri said the camera will be able to identify characteristics, contours and shapes of items in view. For example, the camera’s ability to sense distance, size, depth, color, contours and other parameters of structures could also help in the growing area of 3D printing. A depth sensing picture of a model can be extracted to reveal exact specifications and other details of a design, which can then be printed. His example – the printing of a cell phone case which can be done by simply holding the phone in front of the sensor, where it is recognized and a 3D model developed for printing the case.
The system will also allow eye tracking. One beneficial use of this would be to track the eye movement of students as they read on the screen. This could then be used to tell if kids are stuck on words, how much they read, or whether they need help with specific words. ”Having the capabilities to say — they read about 80 percent of the lines, they had difficulty with these words — that kind of intelligence for educational tools is phenomenal,” Nanduri said.
He is right, but the technology can also be used to track how you interact with advertising and other content to develop ways to deliver more targeted content and in a more personalized and effective way. Some would argue that may be going to far.
So 3D technology is far from dead. It will continue development a bit out of the limelight, but will be adapted to provide more useful and alternative entertainment functions