Intel RealSense Technology

Intel RealSense, formerly known as Intel Perceptual Computing, is a platform for implementing gesture-based human-computer interaction techniques. It consists of series of consumer grade 3D cameras together with an easy to use machine perception library that simplifies supporting the cameras for third-party software developers.

As of March 2015, multiple laptop and tablet computer manufactures offer one or more devices with Intel RealSense camera built in. These are Asus, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer. Also, a standalone webcam from Razer is among the first to offer the Intel RealSense camera built into the design. Consumer-ready versions of the RealSense camera are the Razer Stargazer and the Creative BlasterX Senz3D.

An Intel RealSense camera contains the following four components: a conventional camera, an infrared laser projector, an infrared camera, and a microphone array. The infrared projector projects a grid onto the scene (in infrared light which is invisible to human eye) and the infrared camera records it to compute depth information. The microphone array allows localizing sound sources in space and performing background noise cancellation.

Three camera models were announced, with distinct specifications and intended use.

This is a stand-alone camera that can be attached to a desktop or laptop computer. It is intended to be used for natural gesture-based interaction, face recognition, immersive, video conferencing and collaboration, gaming and learning and 3D scanning.

There is a version of this camera to be embedded into laptop computers.

Snapshot is a camera intended to be built into tablet computers and possibly smartphones. Its intended uses include taking photographs and performing after the fact refocusing, distance measurements, and applying motion photo filters.

The refocus feature differs from a plenoptic camera in that RealSense Snapshot takes pictures with large depth of field so that initially the whole picture is in focus and then in software it selectively blurs parts of the image depending on their distance.

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