Stanford camera chip can see in 3D

"Most folks think of a photo as a two-dimensional representation of a scene.
Stanford University researchers, however, have created an image sensor that
also can judge the distance of subjects within a snapshot.

To accomplish the feat, Keith Fife and his colleagues have developed
technology called a multi-aperture image sensor that sees things differently
than the light detectors used in ordinary digital cameras.

Instead of devoting the entire sensor for one big representation of the
image, Fife's 3-megapixel sensor prototype breaks the scene up into many
small, slightly overlapping 16x16-pixel patches called subarrays. Each
subarray has its own lens to view the world--thus the term multi-aper

Each subarray on the multi-aperture sensor captures a small portion of the
overall image, a portion that overlaps slightly with that of the neighboring
subarrays. By comparing the differences, a camera can judge the distance of
elements in the subject. "



For complete article:

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9874436-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&ta...547-1_3

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:39:26 -0500, Lee K wrote:

> Fife's 3-megapixel sensor prototype breaks the scene up into many
> small, slightly overlapping 16x16-pixel patches called subarrays. Each
> subarray has its own lens to view the world--thus the term multi-aper

Pretty much the technology used by the common house fly since _before_
there were even any houses.