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Philips Develops Fluid Lenses
Lars T. writes "Digital Photography Review has a short report indicating: 'Philips Research at the CeBIT exhibition is demonstrating a unique variable-focus lens system that has no mechanical moving parts. Suited to a wide range of optical imaging applications, including digital cameras.' Here is Philips' press release and the Heise News article (in German) where I first heard about it. The latter also mentions that Philips has recently used the same electrowetting effect in an 'ePaper' display prototype."
"Suited to a wide range of optical imaging applications, including digital cameras." I take this to mean that it is not ready for precision applications and that it may not be. either way, this will take time to get any better
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
Getting larger probably has constraints, though using different solutions may provide some flexibility in size. Gravity alone would probably have a big impact on 'eyewear' sized lenses.
I'd guess that the going much smaller is constrained by capillary action.
I dont know about scaling it up. The article is short on details which relate much to eyewear. Eyeglasses correct a huge range of flaws in eyes; by far not the least of which is astigmatism, (wildly popular) which is when your cornea is not curved the same in all axis. (For example, your eyeglasses correction may need to be different vertically than horizontally.)
Astigmatism isn't going to lend well to this, would be my guess, but who knows maybe those wizards can make assymetrical fluid shapes.
Secondly, the size.. why make it big? Make it small like contacts (your eyes dialate only to 5 or 6 mm as an adult.) And put it close. Bizarre tiny eyeglasses is the ticket.
Also a sign of a good idea, and a good author. How long ago did he pen that? and it might be practable!?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
To me it seems that using such a lense would be bad news in a nonstable environment. E.g. a bumpy car ride.. Any thoughts on this?
Depends on which fluid has the lower refraction index. I.e. either the upper-fluid in the diagram can be regarded as the lens, in which case the lines are drawn correctly, or the lower fluid, in which case you are right.
I think that's the point--they're targetting small camera applications: mobile phones, PDAs, keychain digital cameras, clandestine surveillance cameras and such.
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
- 'K' in Men in Black.
Maybe to all that, but these would be perfect for people who nead thei cateracts removed.
... and did he get a patent? :)
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Yes! It occurred to me that my video camera can autofocus over a range that my own eyes can't any longer. Not only that, it can zoom and see in the dark (Sony nightvision). I'm ready for spectacles that can do all that. I'm tired of switching from one pair of fixed focus glasses to another, to trifocals and back. Stop the insanity!
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
How fast can you change focus? If you can change faster than the time it takes to take a picture, you could actually use different focus for the same picture. Each pixel could look on the values of a few neighbour pixels to find out when the picture is sharpest in this region and save only the pixel value from that time. Information about the actual focus used could be saved in the alpha channel. Imagine a picture of an object 10cm from you where both that object and the background is sharp.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Yes, it would. There was already experiments underway with this about three or four years ago. I'd be very surprised if lenses like that, although not as pretty as these ones, are already in use.
The ones I'm thinking of was developed in particular for under-developed countries. Helpworkers can bring a whole set of glasses and easily and quickly adapt them on site without the need of expensive equipment.
I hate replying to myself, but I forgot something. If you can't scale this up to eyeglass size, why not just replace your *whole* lens with one of these. They are similar in size, and with some nifty bioelectronics, it could learn to focus using the nerve impluses that your brain uses to control your real lenses. Just hope the battery doesn't die when doing something important like driving...
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
I think that's the point--they're targetting small camera applications: mobile phones, PDAs, keychain digital cameras, clandestine surveillance cameras and such.
Prolly not. The real issue is that the smaller the lenses, the more of a role surface tension takes towards creating a uniform surface. Boundary layers between fluids always have a tendency to bow out in one direction or the other. But that "skin" is just half the thickness of one molecule plus it's range of interaction with the surrounding ones. For water, remember your Van Der Waals forces, kids.
In a one centimeter wide tube filled with water, this phenomenon is obvious and dominates the behavior of the interface. In a one *meter* wide tube, everything from little wavelets from vibration (!) to any impurities to, oh, btw GRAVITY[1], will tend to randomize the shape of the interface.
In udda woids, the bigger the surface area, the more random, or at least nonuniform the shape of the "lens".
Getcherself a copy of good ol' Prandtl&Tietjens (Fundamentals of Hydro&Aerodynamics). Your life will never be the same.
[1] It blows my mind that *nobody* on this thread has yet commented on the tendency of gravity to deform such lenses. Gack! Have *any* of you done the thought experiment instead of just believing what you read?
The Phillips device has a second fluid. I would assume in part this is to address that. Betcha that the indices of refraction are very different but the densities are exactly the same.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Philips is the inventor of the CD, and plays an important role in the development of DVD and its successors. Now where could somebody use a tiny, focusable lens without moving parts? Multi-layer optical drives, both player and recorder is certainly a valid answer.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck