Anyway, I posted the following to Gordon McComb's C.R.M alternative
site, and thought I would bring it here to see if it starts some more
discussion. To me, this seems to be a "disruptive technology"...
meaning it has the potential to make significant changes to the
robotics world.
It is the Z-Cam by 3DV Systems. It seems to be a time-of-flight
system that generates 1 to 2 cm accuracy of depth measurements over a
1.3 meg pixel display. That is, a depth measurement for EACH PIXEL at
60 fpm. The next part, which is the real ground breaking part, is
that they are marketing it as a game controller for the masses priced
at uner $100.
Here is a link to their gallery, which shows some movies of it in
action. http://www.3dvsystems.com/gallery/gallery.html
Here is where they describe the technology; http://www.3dvsystems.com/technology/tech.html
It seems to be a system where they emit a very brief pulse of light
(from LED's) and capture the image using an extremely fast gated
sensor (like a vast electronic shutter).
Joe Dunfee
> Anyway, I posted the following to Gordon McComb's C.R.M alternative
> site, and thought I would bring it here to see if it starts some more
> discussion. To me, this seems to be a "disruptive technology"...
> meaning it has the potential to make significant changes to the
> robotics world.
>
> It is the Z-Cam by 3DV Systems. It seems to be a time-of-flight
> system that generates 1 to 2 cm accuracy of depth measurements over a
> 1.3 meg pixel display. That is, a depth measurement for EACH PIXEL at
> 60 fpm. The next part, which is the real ground breaking part, is
> that they are marketing it as a game controller for the masses priced
> at uner $100.
>
> Here is a link to their gallery, which shows some movies of it in
> action. http://www.3dvsystems.com/gallery/gallery.html
>
> Here is where they describe the technology; http://www.3dvsystems.com/technology/tech.html
> It seems to be a system where they emit a very brief pulse of light
> (from LED's) and capture the image using an extremely fast gated
> sensor (like a vast electronic shutter).
Looks like fun. The trick is actually getting your hands on
one with enough of software specification/stack to actually
use it.
-Wayne
This would be very cool for the robotics world, at under $100. Kind of
short-range SICK laser scanner for the masses.
It appears to work using "time of flight" technology, which has been
around for some time. I am currently reading Joe Engelberger's book
Robotics in Service from 1989, and they had TOF sensors back then, but
very expensive, $100K range.