Morpho’s software will soon bring high-end camera features to smartphones

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Published 26 Feb 2013

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BARCENA—Imaging technology once reserved for high end cameras might be coming to smartphones with new software from pan’s Morpho.

The company has developed an image stabilization system for high-definition video a background defocus feature for smartphone cameras. Morpho has partnered with device makers the features should be shipping on smartphones early next year.

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pan’s Morpho has developed a smartphone application that lets cameras shoot images with a defocused background, typically a feature reserved for high end cameras.

“ take two pictures with different focus levels then basically what we try to do is segment the foreground object from the background one,” said Kenji Okuma a senior engineer with Morpho, Inc.

He admitted that the system isn’t perfect at separating the two images said that it’s most dramatic when the foreground image is close the lens. After the picture is taken users can change the amount of background blur using a slider bar.

Morpho is also working on image stabilization for HD video. As devices continue to get smaller, the amount of shakes bumps increase. Morpho’s system can reduce shakiness significantly in video shot at 30 frames per second. That’s significant because a lot of processing power is typically needed to render HD video on the fly.

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Morpho’s image stabilization software crops the resulting video by 10 percent, but significantly reduces shakiness.

“at we try to do is calculate the motion between the previous frame the current frame try to compensate for that,” Okuma said on the show floor of Mobile rld Congress.

In order to compensate for the shakiness, the resulting video is cropped about 10 percent.

Okuma wouldn’t say exactly which device makers will be using the new systems, but did say several major ones including one from South Korea plan to use it.