Smartphone snapshots could be instantly converted into professional-looking photographs with just the touch of a button, thanks to a processor chip developed at MIT.
The chip, built by a team at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory, can perform tasks such as creating more realistic or enhanced lighting in a shot without destroying the scene’s ambience, in just a fraction of a second. The technology could be integrated with any smartphone, tablet computer or digital camera.
Existing computational photography systems tend to be software applications that are installed onto cameras and smartphones. However, such systems consume substantial power, take a considerable amount of time to run, and require a fair amount of knowledge on the part of the user, says the paper’s lead author, Rahul Rithe, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
“We wanted to build a single chip that could perform multiple operations, consume significantly less power compared to doing the same job in software, and do it all in real time,” Rithe says. He developed the chip with Anantha Chandrakasan, professor of electrical engineering, fellow graduate student Priyanka Raina, research scientist Nathan Ickes and undergraduate Srikanth Tenneti.