Light-field camera technology has been shown to do some pretty impressive things, like refocus an image after it’s taken, but imagine being able to see these photos in 3D.
In case you haven’t seen it before, light-field technology takes an advanced camera sensor that captures all the rays of light in a scene, literally photographing the entirety of the scene, depth and all. With this information stored, you can later on change the focus point, and even share the images, which also happen to be interactive so your friends can change the focus point, too.
Camera company Lytro developed this technology, and shortly after release in Australia, added a new feature that was rolled out to all cameras: the ability to change perspective.
This feature basically enabled Lytro images to be moved around slightly, taking that depth information and applying it to a 3D space, letting you see slightly around the corner of what you had photographed with the long Lytro camera.
Now, Lytro is making it possible for owners of 3D TVs to see these perspective shots, with an update that makes it possible to do just this.
“The beauty and power of Light Field Technology is that we are able to continue to expand on how living pictures are experienced, first with Perspective Shift and now 3D,” said Jason Rosenthal, CEO of Lytro.
“Lytro remains committed to delivering new ways to make visual storytelling more immersive and engaging through innovative software and hardware.”
Getting it to work should be hard, and Lytro owners simply need to have a 3D TV with the computer connected over HDMI or Apple AirPlay (Mac only for that last one). Then they just grab the new release of the Lytro software (3.1) for Windows PCs and Macs that can show perspective images as 3D images.
Owners of the Apple iPhone and other iOS devices can also run through AirPlay, sharing the 3D images with a 3D TV through the Lytro Mobile 1.2 app.
To test out the perspective images, wait for the above Lytro image to load, and then click and drag your mouse inside the box, moving ever so slightly around the scene.
