Now a camera that lets you see beneath the skin of a fruit – HyperCam

The regular camera can only capture the red, green, blue wavelengths, whereas a new smartphone add-on cam ‘HyperCam’ is capable of capturing both visible as well as invisible infrared wavelengths to look beneath an object’s surface. With this ability, HyperCam can show blood vessels under your skin in normal light. This cam utilizes both the visible and near – infrared wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, thereby using 17 wavelengths for illuminating the scene in the frame and generates an image. The cam has been invented to use it as a mini infrared camera in your smartphone that would be used in a food safety app.

This camera is capable of capturing more details than the regular camera that just use the regular light. We have UW software that analyze the images and select the one that is very different from the others particularly in terms of what a naked eye can see.  To say, it zeroes on the picture that reveals more details. The researchers at Microsoft Research and University of Washington started research on this subject as they wanted to bring to the smartphone users. The researchers are now working on a version of the app that could be downloaded at a cost of $50.

This project was presented in the UbiComp 2015 conference. To test HyperCam it was used to take 10 photos of different fruits and it predicted their relative ripeness with an accuracy of 94 percent. The goal behind developing this device is to have a powerful device to be used while buying and inspecting groceries. It was even tested with humans and results have shown that it can distinguish between different fingerprints with an accuracy of 99 percent. Shwetak Patel, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering (University of Washington) says, “It’s like having a food safety app in your pocket.” However, the technology still has some limitations to be overcome. One issue is that too much bright light can cause camera to misbehave and not give the desired results. Besides food safety app, a major use of the camera is in biometric security.