New lensless camera takes multi-colored images without color filter

Scientists from Singapore have developed a new lensless camera that can take sharp and colored images without any lens or color filters.

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore came up with the new camera technology and submitted its patent that is still pending. Through a piece of ground glass and a monochrome sensor, the new technology can identify infinite range of colors within a single image.

Instead of normal color filters, the camera makes use of speckle patterns for identifying and showing the various spectra in an image that is not otherwise seen from a naked eye. Because of this technique, infinite color band can be captured simultaneously including UV Reflected (UVR), UV Fluorescent (UVF), Digital Infrared (IR), and visible (VIS), reported Singapore’s newspaper, The New Paper.

This lensless camera creates 3D images from single 2D image

According to one of the researchers, Dr Sujit Kumar Sahoo, “It could be used in food safety, where one can take a photo of fruits or meat in particular spectra to look for spots that are associated with chemicals or bacterial activity leading to spoilage.”

Moreover, this technology can also be used for confirming the authenticity of artwork by capturing various paint layers that are not visible to the naked eye. Also, this camera can prove to be beneficial in the pharmaceutical industry as a cheaper and flexible alternative to the hyperspectral cameras that are currently used for the quality control of drugs.

This can replace the usual expensive device, the spectrometer that splits light into different colors and is, at present used to distinguish various spectra within an image. The lead researcher Steve Cuong Dang also mentioned that this camera can be used in future smartphones and DSLR cameras and as a result, make them slimmer and cut down the requirement of heavy and expensive lens and color filters. This new technology was also featured on the cover of the scientific journal Optica, reported Science Daily.