Citing the head of Sony’s sensor division, Satoshi Yoshihara (shown below), its 3D camera sensors will be heading to new smartphones that will be released in 2019. The sensors will be equipped on the front and rear cameras of these smartphones.
Sony 3D camera sensors utilize a method called time-of-flight which apparently allows the sensors to create highly details 3D models and can be utilized from a distance of up to 5 meters. Potential usages for them includes virtual characters as well as a motion controller for games. Sony has also released software toolkits to developers in order to allow them to come out with apps that can take advantages of the company’s 3D camera sensors. This is indeed an important move by the company since the level of consumers’ interest on the tech is not yet known at the moment.
Nevertheless, it seems that 3D TOF camera sensors which already appeared on some devices including OPPO R17 Pro and Honor View 20 (shown above) could be a norm among smartphones very soon. (Source: Bloomberg)
