Depth Enabled Photography - Double Bottom Photo



    Is it possible to invent something new in photography? Undoubtedly, this is literally a limitless area for various kinds of creative and technological experiments. The general concept of innovation remains unchanged: the bolder the idea you bring to life, the more effective the result. This post will focus on one interesting photo application of Intel RealSense technology - photos equipped with depth information, Depth Enabled Photography (DEP).

    As the name implies, DEP is an advanced photo format in which, along with the traditional picture, there is information about the distance from the objects in the frame to the shooting point. That is, each point of the image, in addition to the coordinates in the color space, is associated with another value or a set of values, since there can be several cameras, and each of them gets its own photo and depth map. The set of metadata is not limited by depth, it can be the orientation of the camera in space, the coordinates of the survey point, and many others, up to vendor-specific fields filled with equipment. This ensures compatibility within the selected container, that is, if the software or device does not know how to work with DEP, it will only show a visible image in the format of, say, JPEG.



    DEP metadata is stored in the formateXtensible Device Metadata (XDM), developed by Intel in conjunction with other leading photographic companies to store additional non-visual information from cameras. You can get a depth map now using the Intel RealSense camera, and not only get it, but also process it and, in particular, put it inside the XDM container, as they say, the Intel RealSense SDK in your hands. Depth metadata visualization is shown in the photo below.





    You have probably already felt how many new features RealSense can bring to photography. I will still list the most interesting.
    • Separating the background from the foreground. In this matter, RealSense has succeeded for a long time, the full use of this function in photography will certainly allow you to create many masterpieces.
    • Layered editing. Also a valuable treasure for post-processing masters.
    • Adjusts the depth of field and focus point. In fact, from one photo you can make a dozen new and completely different.
    • Measurements by photo. A photo can become a source of accurate data on the relative position of objects for forensic, historical and other studies.

    It remains to wait only for DEP support in graphic editors. Well, the new RealSense cameras, of course, are convenient for taking pictures.

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