Apple has been granted a bevy of new patent approvals including one for depth imaging, reports Patently Apple.
The one highlighted in the report, “Generation of Patterned Radiation”, details how a projected light pattern could be used to enable spatial mapping when an Apple device – an iPhone, say – is capturing an image. The patent was first filed way back in the start of 2013, but its concern remains current, with Qualcomm having just announced new camera modules meant to bring sophisticated depth sensing to the cameras of future Android devices.
Depth sensing offers applications in virtual reality and augmented reality, and there is some speculation that Apple’s next big iPhone will ship with some kind of AR feature, though any such feature’s 3D mapping will probably rely most on the dual infrared camera system that is also anticipated for the device.
This is one of 35 patents that have just been granted to Apple, with other notable ones including a patent for a pressure-sensitive fingerprint recognition system and a patent for an wireless charging system for Apple’s smartwatch technology.
Source: Patently Apple
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