Samsung Galaxy S21 to come without ToF sensor
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- AnonD-754814
- 6p}
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-909757, 15 Aug 2020"because there aren't enough use cases for this t... moreEDIT :
Include 12MP in the second line.
I think most ToFs are 0.3MP(including Samsung's)(which is made by Sony).
12MP LiDAR or ToF ?
You can't just use that in smartphone even if we take hundreds of dollars cost for 1 ToF set out of equation.
That's also going to suck the juice of the battery out in just 10-20 minutes or less.
I think you need to know how ToF works.
Also your camera choice is very confusing.
Looks like you love 12MP sensors. You chose 12MP for main sensor.
Then why did you go for over 16MP resolution for Ultrawide and Telephoto camera ?
Any particular brand biased ?
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- AnonD-754814
- 6p}
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-909757, 15 Aug 2020Did I ever said it NEEDED AT ALL ?
I only said to be USEFU... moreI think Samsung was one of the first who came up with 5MP macro camera instead of useless 2MP.
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- AnonD-754814
- 6p}
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-909757, 15 Aug 2020"because there aren't enough use cases for this t... moreI think most ToFs are 0.3MP(including Samsung's)(which is made by Sony).
LiDAR or ToF ?
You can't just use that in smartphone even if we take hundreds of dollars cost for 1 ToF set out of equation.
That's also going to suck the juice of the battery out in just 10-20 minutes or less.
I think you need to know how ToF works.
Also your camera choice is very confusing.
Looks like you love 12MP sensors. You chose 12MP for main sensor.
Then why did you go for over 16MP resolution for Ultrawide and Telephoto camera ?
Any particular brand biased ?
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- AnonD-909757
- pZQ
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-762416, 15 Aug 2020You clearly have zero clue what the ToF camera is for. The ... moreYOU have no idea what you talk about.
A depth sensor IS a regular camera except it does 2 things differently :
1) It only look in near infrared spectrum.
2) Rather than recording all pixels then goes from analog to numeric multiple times per seconds to images per images, it read the delay each pixels have between the emission of the IR pulse and them getting it back, which indicate, per pixels, the distance light traveled.
Here is what the resulting image give :
https://augmentedrealitymarketing.pressbooks.com/app/uploads/sites/62119/2017/07/ToF-Image-2D-Color-Heat-Map.png
Here the image have been processed to make depth appear at different color.
You can see the resulting image of a ToF sensor from a Samsung S10/S20/Note10 here :
https://www.xda-developers.com/night-vision-tof-camera-samsung-galaxy-s20-note-10-s10-5g-see-in-the-dark/
And you can CLEARLY see that the edges aren't sharp, simply because it have a crappy low resolution, and since Depth sensor biggest use is literally to help numeric focus on a subject and that edge detection is where the biggest difficulties are, it is useless to have a 0.5MP depth sensor.
Literally it tell you what your algorithm is already able to process, the distance of the main part of the subject, it can maybe help with objects/subjects and background separation, but not much at those low resolutions.
And if you have issues with transition, it simply mean your software is crappy and can't handle any kind of rejection, also depth sensor can see at quite far range if the sensor is good enough quality and the IR light pulse strong enough.
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- AnonD-909757
- pZQ
- 15 Aug 2020
Anonymous, 15 Aug 2020ToF is not able to take photo, so it is useless to have hig... moreToF give you depth map that for properly using it without taking ages matching its data with the one from the camera and to avoid glitches, you need it to be 12MP or more (which is what the phone output).
Do you NEED it to have high resolution ? No, but do your smartphones actually need camera at all in that case ?
There are many evidences that a low resolutions depth sensor is basically useless, it would be like playing Half Life Alyx with all graphic settings on max on a high resolution VR headset like the Valve Index, but running it on a GeForce2, and expect to run it smoothly in real time, it ain't happening.
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- AnonD-762416
- d$y
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-909757, 15 Aug 2020Did I ever said it NEEDED AT ALL ? I only said to be USEFU... moreYou clearly have zero clue what the ToF camera is for. The word camera is apparently misleading you here as it isn't a camera, it's a depth sensor. Resolution is quite irrelevant beyond a point. Speed and depth is however very relevant. The reason Samsung is pausing this is because the transition between where it can be used, at close range, and where it can't be used causes focusing issues.
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- Anonymous
- LkB
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-909757, 15 Aug 2020"because there aren't enough use cases for this t... moreToF is not able to take photo, so it is useless to have high resolution.
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- Anonymous
- LkB
- 15 Aug 2020
ToF is not only for fake bokeh.
- AR : it will never be popular, but it can give 3D depth info.
- AF: it can assist. Laser will focus only on 1 point, ToF can focus on more than 200 points.
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- Shiv..11
- DkN
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-909757, 15 Aug 2020Thanks you ! That's exactly why we can't get g... moreYes broo!! We really need to see these damn 2MP macro and 2MP depth batch should be ditched also same 8MP ultra wide it's became quite trend these days in budget segment. Instead all those damn everything.. they can give two cameras of std. 12MP with large sensor area for both Main lens and a ultra wide lens considering budget segment
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- gogu
- nD$
- 15 Aug 2020
samsung shouldnt be surprised when huawei and xiaomi passes it in few years. they keep innovating and bringing improvements at decent prices while samsung keep downgrading while increasing price.
they slowly transform into apple
- YUKI93
- ibX
- 15 Aug 2020
"Samsung decided to drop the ToF sensors on the Galaxy S21 because there aren't enough use cases for this technology right now."
Honestly speaking, the only reason why would you want the ToF sensor for photography is because of software-driven Portrait mode, that's it.
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- AnonD-909757
- pZQ
- 15 Aug 2020
Andreidinutu, 15 Aug 2020That's all you got from his comment? He had many great... moreThanks you !
That's exactly why we can't get good stuff, EVERYTIME someone have a good idea, give an idea of an improvement or anything, someone need to add his negativity into it, and meanwhile they are praising which actually are negatives.
Best exemple is how everyone say totally wrong things about the pop up camera and its supposed fragility, durability issues and such, despite literally having proven to be really tough and durable after really difficult to find failure report after over 2 years of existence.
But all totally hypnotized with underdisplay camera who do the same job but with tons of downsides and not a single real advantages, plus not even being able to give privacy, actually doing the opposite.
I mean, we could literally have no picture processing and require to plug the phone through USB to a special computer that will do the job, yeah, it would work too, but is it the best solution ?
That's the same thing with 0.5MP depth sensors.
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- AnonD-909757
- pZQ
- 15 Aug 2020
Anonymous, 15 Aug 2020You clearly have zero clue. The depth cameras do definitely... moreDid I ever said it NEEDED AT ALL ?
I only said to be USEFUL it is needed, you can have useful results with a 0.5 one, but it is totally impractical.
Depth camera give you a depth map, meaning it measure the distance of each pixels, if you have a 2MP or a 0.5MP depth sensor, you'll need to do LOT of computation, such as edge detection (a lot of it) to make the depth sensor data scaling up to be usable, otherwise you endup with many artifacts, like the typical out of focus hairs edges.
But the goal is to reduce the time the picture need to be processed, so they don't scale up to 12MP through all the process to match the pictures, meaning it have many errors and can't be used for a LOT of things that would be naturally possible with a 12MP (or more) depth sensor.
Meaning a 12MP depth sensor would not only allow for faster picture processing, but also on top of giving you a MUCH BETTER result, will also open many of new features that are totally not faisable IN REAL TIME (or with a reasonably short processing time) with a 0.5MP or 2MP sensor.
This is the SAME thing that happen with macro camera, who unsurprisingly have quite bad results when using a 2MP sensor, and also unsurprisingly, the quality DRAMATICALLY INCREASE when switching to a 5MP like Xiaomi did, and it is even better when using a 2x optical zoom like the K30 Pro/Poco F2 Pro do.
So You are part of the people who say "NaH, ThIs Is WrOnG" while not even understanding what the other person actually is talking about, like it happen almost everytimes.
- Andreidinutu
- mEA
- 15 Aug 2020
Anonymous, 15 Aug 2020You clearly have zero clue. The depth cameras do definitely... moreThat's all you got from his comment? He had many great points. Also 12mp so it's not useless. Please stop being rude to a nice comment
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- Anonymous
- LHe
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-783442, 15 Aug 2020because we are in 2020s now.No. It's because Samsung wanted to get away from odd double digit numerical naming and didn't want to be one below Apple (S11 vs iPhone 12), same reason why there was no Xbox 2 but 360 instead. S30 is the next model number and Samsung doesn't consider Huawei as much of threat to be model name matching them.
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- Puhleeze
- 7tV
- 15 Aug 2020
Anonymous, 15 Aug 2020The ToF sensor has been a joy to use for me on the Huawei P... morea greater lie has never been told
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- Anonymous
- 3Jd
- 15 Aug 2020
Rodolf, 15 Aug 2020Really?! Then why they copied Huawei (HiSilicon) chipset nu... moreYou really think they decided to copy Huawei with naming their CPU's?? LOL
Since Samsung had their own CPU's for years before Huawei does that mean Huawei copied Samsung by making their own CPU's??
Anyways not a problem their Kirin chips wont be made much longer if the US has their way LOOOL
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- Anonymous
- 39b
- 15 Aug 2020
AnonD-909757, 15 Aug 2020"because there aren't enough use cases for this t... moreYou clearly have zero clue. The depth cameras do definitely not need to be 12MP(+) to do a good job.
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- Anonymous
- 39b
- 15 Aug 2020
The ToF sensor has been a joy to use for me on the Huawei P30 Pro. It has the best framework and apps for 3D scanning, yes, better than the iPad Pro with its LiDAR scanner.
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- AnonD-909757
- pZQ
- 15 Aug 2020
"because there aren't enough use cases for this technology right now"
Of course when you put a damn stupid low 0.5MP RESOLUTION IT IS USELESS !
The goal of a depth sensor is to allow for compensating numeric focus, create brokeh effect and it can do many things like dynamic refocusing and/or change the depth of field, make a portrait shot with long focal length result with a main shooter, fix edge detection and MUCH MORE.
But you need it to be AT LEAST 12MP to do that as most camera output a 12MP picture through binning (or are 12MP).
This is the same kind of stupidity of 2MP Macro camera who OBVIOUSLY are near useless since they give crappy quality, or sub 12MP wide/ultrawide despite it literally covering more surface and at equal resolution already have less pixels per degrees (less details per objects at the same distance) or with telephoto that heavily depend on hybrid zoom to archive the marketed 100bazillions x zoom.
What you need to make a good camera setup is :
*12MP or 48MP with 2x2 binning like the IMX689 or 52MP like the IMX700 who output 13MP as a main camera.
*16 or 19MP ultrawide.
*16 or 19MP telephoto with 3x to 5x or more optical zoom, with good focal length variation which can also double as a Portrait camera (as long focal length is the best for portrait but require some zoom)
*12MP macro camera with a 2x or 3x optical zoom to allow for nice close up shots without requiring to put the phone ridiculously close (but still have a close focus point, better than what a macro without a wide/ultrawide would give).
*12MP or more depth sensor that could give both ToF (LIDAR) for depth mapping and also used for extra fast continuous (fast pulsations) laser autofocus, which ideally use the LIDAR mode in alternance of close range and medium range optimized bursts (but also contextually).
And for long range depth map, using all the other sensors combined to get a precise multiscopy data (with two eyes/camera we can tell distance by stereoscopy through the difference of angle caused by the distance of the two eyes/sensors, the same can also be done with more sensors, which can compensate for their relatively close distance from each others).
THAT'S how you use sensors and depth camera, not by putting a 0.00000000000001MP sensor, barely exploiting the capabilities of the tech, then complain that it is useless.