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Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

Kinda boggles my mind that there hasn't been a stronger push for hardware support of 3D imaging in phones. It clearly provides more useful information for analysis. Even when we look at an image in a photo we map it to a 3D projection in our mind.

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Think about the data explosion when all our photos and video store the whole light field.

A 2.5D model is probably less data?

There have been a few phones which provided that, notably the HTC Evo 3D. It had dual cameras and an autostereoscopic (glasses-free 3D) display.

The value provided was, IMO, quite minimal. It was not easier to use or better in any user-facing discernible way, the 3D stuff just felt like a gimmick. 3D photos taken by the phone and viewed on its screen did not feel more lifelike. The color depth and image quality was poor even by the standards of other phones of its era.

While it was very cool and felt very futuristic, it did not feel worth the cost.

Not sure if this qualifies, but an interesting development which was new to me not so long ago was discovering the iPhone X has the ability to measure things with the camera. I.e. the measure app allows you to designate a point in the scene, draw a line and add another point and it will measure the distance. Also has nice snapping features and the ability to take a pic of the scene with the measurements superimposed on top.

Phones with multiple camera are starting to become common. Time of flight sensors that use projected infrared patterns aren't trivial to out in a phone so the demand needs to be there. Still, there have been tablets that have integrated Intel's depth cameras.

Nit: Projected patterns are structured light, not time-of-flight. As far as I’m aware (would love to be wrong!) you can’t do ToF with a traditional CCD or CMOS sensor and resolution is invariably woeful.

What kind of sensors do they use in time-of-flight? Because I think they do use gated CCD or CMOS...?

Hm, last time I checked I thought the sensors were individual diodes but it looks like you're right, and 'flash LIDAR' cameras do use some funky kind of CCD. Still relatively low resolution but good to know, thanks!

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