From the exposed rendering, we can see that the biggest change of the new iPhone is the use of a 'Yuba' type rear camera design similar to Huawei's mate20 series. The rear camera consists of 3 lenses and 1 flash. The whole camera module moves up to the upper left corner of the back of the fuselage.
Although we have been used to the iPhone explosion in three days and two ends, the exposure of this rendering caused a lot of uproar among netizens. 'Ugly' and 'plagiarism' are the most common words, while 'jobs's coffin plate' is an unexpected 'unstoppable'. In a word, those who are good at summarizing are made by apple, destined by Huawei.
For the same three photos, the new iPhone is quite different from Huawei. Since the iPhone 7 plus, the iPhone has been using a wide-angle + telephoto dual camera solution. On the other hand, the new iPhone has added a TOF depth camera while retaining the scheme.
TOF camera vs. 3D structured light
TOF (time of flight) is actually a depth information measurement scheme, which is mainly composed of infrared light projector and receiving module. The projector projects infrared light outward. The infrared light reflects when it meets the measured object and is received by the receiving module. The depth information of the illuminated object is calculated and 3D modeling is completed by recording the time when the infrared light is transmitted to the received. TOF has been widely used in surveying and mapping, logistics, driverless and other industrial fields, the scheme is mature, but the application in the field of consumer electronics is relatively rare.
In contrast, the 3D structured light technology adopted by many manufacturers in face recognition at present, iPhone X and oppo find x all adopt the 3D structured light scheme. Different from TOF, 3D structured light projects multiple light spots to the measured object by using dot matrix projector, and then takes the 3D light image of the measured object with infrared camera, and calculates the depth information of the object through the processing system.
Let's compare the capability difference between TOF and 3D structured light through the following figure.
It is not difficult to see that the accuracy of 3D structured light in depth measurement is higher, but the process is relatively complex, and there are relatively high restrictions on environmental light and recognition distance. However, TOF is more adaptable to the environment light, the recognition distance can reach 10 m, the response time is faster, and the process difficulty is relatively low, and the recognition accuracy is not as good as 3D structured light.
TOF camera, not just good for taking photos
It is said that 'we can make the best use of everything according to local conditions'. Although there is a gap between TOF and structured light in recognition accuracy, the advantages of using TOF in rear camera make up for the weakness of rear camera in depth information measurement.
In the portrait shooting, we pursue the 'sharp as the front inside the focus, virtual as cream outside the focus' close to the SLR, but the effect of double shooting + algorithm matting has not been satisfactory. In some scenarios, the five fingers we stretched out were virtualized three, and the protruding hair was erased directly. These are all the injuries caused by insufficient hardware and poor algorithm.
With the addition of TOF camera, the post camera module can obtain the depth of field information with higher accuracy than the dual camera through fast and long distance, thus completing the 3D modeling with a larger range than the structured light. Therefore, in portrait mode, the mobile phone with TOF lens will be more realistic and hierarchical in the virtual effect. In terms of cost, it is obviously easier to add TOF camera than upgrade algorithm or adopt new technology.
In fact, oppo R17 Pro was the first one to add TOF camera to the rear camera of mobile phone, and last month, glory V20 also took the year-end bus of TOF camera. In addition to the enhanced avatar effect, oppo and glory give TOF cameras more ways to play. In particular, the 3D sense of body games on the glory V20 can be used to capture real-time actions with mobile phones when connected to the base and TV. Skiing, tennis and dancing are very playable.
The application of TOF camera on the new iPhone, in the eyes of writer, is not only a hardware test, but also an expansion of the ecological advantages of software. Before IOS 11 was launched, apple began to lay out ar projects. Looking back at the apple conference in recent years, the time to demonstrate ar application even exceeded the description of a new technology, which shows that Apple attaches great importance to AR application.
