academic application - small field of view

[toufic_a_]

Hello, complete beginner and new to this field. No idea about hardware or software.

I work on particles, usually connect a normal C-mount camera onto a lens or objective to observe let's say 1 x 1 mm, at high resolution (a few micrometer per pixel (as defined by camera and lenses). If I can see objects as small as 10-15 micrometers that is still ok!

Anyway, to make it easier to identify objects/particles in the field of view, and distinguish them in different depth of fields, I was wondering how can I apply such technology like the RealSense.

Any ideas, modifications that can be made, collaborations to setup, suggestions, please help!!

HNY!!!!

[Andradige_S_Intel]

It's not clear from your description, are you trying to make a depth map of particles? do you want to use the color camera as well. If you are planning on using a lense to magnify particles, keep in mind that RS cameras use IR rays to derive depth.

[toufic_a_]

sorry for delay, HNY!

Yes trying to distinguish particles in solution as there will be too many, specially if transparent crystals, then brightness will be mostly similar. Though this technique will help. But not sure how small it can be adapted (smallest field of view possible).... talking 1x1 mm or bit more is ok.

I can imaging three cameras including IR won't fit into a microscope objective, ha... Usually we can easily use one C-mount camera with 1/2, 2/3 or 1 inch sensor...

[samontab]

Have a look at this post to understand how this technology works:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/realsense/topic/537872

[toufic_a_]

thanks, I see you are helpful to many topics, but hard for me as too many new technical words. Hope to know based on the type of my application. Any suggestion of how, or other technologies (for example someone mentioned time of flight, and also structured light, etc...) hopefully recommend based on what I need, as definitely the camera as it is now cannot be applied on what I am looking for.

[samontab]

OK, first of all you need to know that RealSense (and many simialr cameras) are active sensors.

This means that they emit some kind of information into the scene and then read it back. This is different to a standard camera, which is passive, basically it just receives information from the scene, which has its own illumination (e.g. the sun, or lamps).

For your particular case, it seems that you cannot have an active sensor. If that's the case, you would have to basically just use image processing techniques to identify those objects. OpenCV can be helpful for that.

Now, if you are interested in another type of sensor, you could try with passive stereo. This basically means that you have two (or more) normal cameras looking at the scene from slightly different angles, similar to where your eyes are. Then, you can identify the location of things in those images and compare the parallax between them. The farther away they appear relatively, the closer they are. On the other hand, if they appear relatively in the same place, that means they are far away. Think about looking at an object far away, mountains, sea, etc, and compare that with looking at your hand in front of your eyes. Compare how you see those two objects with only your left eye and then only with your right eye.

That's just the beginning, then you will need to characterise the objects that you see and probably learn about how they look. That way you will be able to identify those objects.

This is a very large area of research, and it is very interesting. Have fun identifying your particles!