Skip to main content

New camera gives users a bug’s-eye view of things

By

A new camera is breaking barriers

A new digital camera designed by a team of scientists literally sees what bugs see. The camera’s design recreates the structure of insects’ eyes to project a fuller, wider, and more focused view than is possible with even the best conventional digital cameras today.

Fire ants and bark beetles were the specific model for this camera, according to a report that the researchers, one of whom is John Rogers, a University of Illinois chemistry and physics professor, published in the May 2 edition of Nature. The report explains that the eye of one of these bugs consists of 200-500 long, cylindrical units called omatidia, each of which includes a cornea connected to a photosensitive organ and surrounded by dark pigment to keep light on one lens from leaking into another lens. All of these omatidia cluster together, with the lens facing outward, to form the bulging multicellular eye shape that we all associate with the insect kingdom. The only key difference among most of them is the number—the dragonfly’s eye has hundreds more omatidia, a level of complexity that defies human engineers’ present-day modeling abilities.

So Rogers’ team emulates the simpler fire ants and bark beetles’ eye by incorporating 200-500 omatidia-like units, each one including an elastic compound that connects a small micolens on one end to a light-receptive computer chip on the other; with all of the “omatidia” embedded in a flexible, curved sheet of rubber.

The lens bulges outward and can capture a view 160 degrees wide, far beyond the visual range of a conventional camera lens, and almost equal to that of a pair of human eyes—human eyes have a vision field almost 180 degrees wide.

But the camera captures the whole field with full depth of field, which means that everything within that 160-degree range is in full focus all at once. That’s a feat that not even the sharpest human eyes can achieve. Just try focusing for a few seconds on everything that your eyes can see at one time for a live demonstration of this. This insectoid camera also doesn’t suffer from the light distortion and peripheral distance effects that are common in many conventional camera lenses.

The prototype camera has an image resolution that’s about on par with the image resolution of a fire ant’s eyes—usable, but less crystal-clear than most human users would like. Higher resolutions will be possible with further product development and fine-tuning, though, according to the researchers.

It will be a long time before any such camera is available for sale to consumers, but the researchers hope that it will be ready for applications in professional surveillance cameras or on military drones in the near future.

Read more: http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/new-camera-gives-users-a-bugs-eye-view-of-things/#ixzz2S9exl3Ge

Blogger Labels: Digital Camera,Bug-eye view,scientists,insects,camera
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DO YOU WANT TO BECOME A MASON IN NIGERIA

By
 After all i have said about this fraternity if you are still interested in becoming a mason there are just simply ways in which you can do that, but inspite of my post i am neither encouraging nor discouraging you all i am doing is just to let you know more about this frat and there's more to come about those who have joined, the so called stars like jay-z, kanye west etc i guess its just 7 simple ways to join and off you go  Are there things you want to accomplish in your life? Are there ways you want to enrich yourself? Do you enjoy being with people you like and respect? As a Freemason, you’ll find friendship and fraternity. You’ll develop life skills like self-confidence, leadership, and effective communication. You’ll learn to work as part of a team  and to better yourself as you help others. Think about taking the first step into becoming a Mason. It is widely thought that one must be invited to become a Freemason or that Freemasonry is so exclusive as to be b...
240 comments
Read more

Police Introduce Biometric Vehicle Registration

By
The Police said the introduction of a new Biometric Central Motor Registration (BCMR) is designed to fight terrorism, Kidnapping and car theft in the country. Police force spokesman CSP Frank Mba made this known at a press briefing in Abuja yesterday. He said the registration take effect from Monday next week and would involve the registration processes of vehicles, tricycles and auto-bikes from the analogue to the new system. He argued that the decision informing the introduction of the new process was against the backdrop of contemporary security challenges bordering on terrorism, high incidence of car theft, carjacking, kidnappings and other crimes. Mba said unlike the analogue procedure, the new method operate on smart-cards and portable hand-held receiver and is a specially developed technological means of attaching automobile owner's unique traits and personal data to their vehicles for proper identification and protection purposes. He said the new system is d...
Post a Comment
Read more