Recently, Satoshi Yoshihara, head of Sony's photosensitive components department, said that Sony expects to mass-produce the photosensitive elements supporting ToF 3D technology in the summer of 2019, which is expected to be applied to partners' products. At present, Sony has begun to provide external testing projects, allowing partners to make advance software adjustments on compatibility issues.
At present, Apple, Xiaomi and other mobile phone manufacturers have adopted Sony's sensor with structured light function, and Sony's ToF 3D sensor will also be widely used by these mobile phone manufacturers.
The ToF technology measures the depth and distance between the sensor and the object, and then uses the mobile phone processor to measure and can be applied to face unlocking and modeling on the mobile phone. This technology can greatly improve the speed of unlocking and 3D modeling, but also has a higher accuracy measurement.
When the iPhone X was released, Apple brought the structured light technology of the front camera to project the face through more than 30,000 invisible optics to achieve 3D modeling imaging. ToF has more than 300,000 information points, which is 10 times that of 3D structured light. At the same time, the maximum drawing distance of ToF 3D super-induction technology can reach 3 meters, which is 3 times that of 3D structured light.
