Scientists and Indian-origin researchers have invented a flexible sheet of camera that could be wrapped around objects to take images that cannot be taken with conventional cameras.
A team of researchers led by Professor Shree K Nayar from Columbia University has designed a flexible lens array that adapts its optical property when the sheet camera is bent. It also enables the camera to produce high quality images over a wide range of sheet deformations.
“While the camera industry has made remarkable progress in shrinking the camera to a tiny device with ever increasing imaging quality, we are exploring a radically different approach to imaging,” Nayar said.
If this kind of system is manufactured cheaply, like a roll of plastic or fabric, then it could be wrapped around all kinds of things including street poles to furniture, cars, and even people’s clothing, to capture wide, seamless images with unusual fields of view. The innovative design can also lead to cameras of credit card size that a photographer could simply flex to control its field of view.
