DxO AutoFocus Speed-Up

Mobile phone camera usage requires instant focus

Mobile phones are the sole imaging devices we all have at hand most of the time, giving us the means to shoot photos and videos anytime, in any place, and in any lighting environment.

Meeting these use cases is quite challenging today for end-users with Auto-Focus cameras:

• For still images, missing the moment is a pain; instant focusing is mandatory for shooting everyday life scenes.
  • The major problem in addressing these challenges for a compact digital camera or a mobile phone camera has always been the time difference between the moment the button is pressed and when the picture is actually taken, usually referred as shutter lag. This delay results from a number of parameters, including the time needed for the actuator to focus the lens.
• For action video, continuous in-focus is a must to avoid visible oscillations between sharp and blurry frames.
  • Despite the great progress made on metering and actuator acceleration in the past decade, the focusing procedure still requires a certain number of steps to reach the best focusing position, making shooting always-in-focus video a challenge, whatever the actuator technology.

DxO AFSU provides continuous instant focus

DxO AFSU, based on DxO Digital Optics core technology, delivers a set of complementary defocus statistics that allow for faster focusing by reducing the number of focus steps or by eliminating focus steps entirely. By providing information related to the direction to defocus and to the distance to the best focus position in a single frame measurement, DxO AFSU boosts actuator performance, provides continuous instant focus for video, and drastically reduces the shutter lag for stills. DxO AFSU’s reliable  statistics avoid focusing errors in extreme conditions such as a low-light environment or when tracking fast-moving objects.

Cameras leveraging DxO AFSU advanced capabilities improve the end-user experience:

DxO AFSU in your system

DxO AFSU is available in two versions:

• As a soft RTL IP that can be integrated either in a sensor or in a processor chip;
• As a firmware plug-in running on any chip, including DxO IPC or DxO ISP.

Contact us for more information