Deep Vision 3D, it’s not what you think

Posted on 08. Dec, 2009 by "Mitch" in Industrial, Industry

Curtin University of Technology (AU) has created the company Deep Vision 3D to bring about some interesting uses for stereoscopic 3D for the underwater and mining industries. Curtin’s Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST) built the custom camera systems with underground and underwater applications in mind.

CMST Research Fellow Andrew Woods, who developed the technology, explained that the 3D video cameras offer significant benefits over existing cameras used in the industry.

“Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicles (ROVs) are equipped with a video camera and lights, and used for subsea inspection in the oil and gas industry. Existing video cameras deliver only a 2D image,” he said.

“The resulting 2D images have limited fidelity making it difficult to accurately determine object size and depth, and are also susceptible to interference from suspended matter in the water.

“Moreover, these issues become a particular problem with more sophisticated ROVs that may be equipped with robotic arms to manipulate the environment.

“Accurately controlling the robotic arm is difficult if the operator has only 2D video to guide their aim, ensuring that even relatively simple tasks are time-consuming and therefore expensive.

“Previous attempts at enabling 3D video camera systems for ROVs have not been successful due to issues of cameras losing critical alignment, and user eye-fatigue.

“Our camera design is capable of addressing all these problems.”

Deep Vision 3D plans to market two products based on this technology, a marine 3D camera (for subsea inspection use in the oil and gas industry) and a hostile environment 3D camera (for use in hostile environments like underground mines and copper smelters).

It seems that interest from major oil and gas companies is obviously already huge. It would also be interesting to see how this technology could be used for other research and battlefield applications, or done on a smaller scale to explore the human body.

More information on the research and funding can be found here.