Microscopic 3D Images Created with a Single Lens

3D has been slowly gaining traction as a display mode, but there are still various experiments being done with the concept, such as one involving engineers from the Ohio State University and a certain lens.

There are many more uses for 3D than in the making of entertainment videos meant for the cinema or consumers owning 3D monitors or HDTVs.

In fact, being able to create the virtual replica of something, even small things, has aided medicine and other fields.

For instance, there are those things called 3D microscopes, which use multiple cameras and lenses to move around an object and study its properties.

Now, researchers Allen Yi and Lei Li from the Ohio State University used polymethyl methacrylate, a thermoplastic material also known as “acrylic glass”, to build a lens that can create microscopic 3D images all by itself.

It should be possible to manufacture using regular molding techniques, even though the prototype was created by means of a precision cutting machine.

“For us, the most attractive part of this project is that we will be able to see the real shape of micro-samples instead of just a 2D projection,’ said Li, according to The Engineer.

The engineers already tested the lens by installing it on a microscope with a single camera looking down through the facets.

Objects placed under the flat side (the tip of a ballpoint pen and a mini drill in this case) were, thus, caught from different angles at the same time, with said image ending up combined on a computer.

Microelectronics and medical devices would no longer need complex machinery for viewing the assembly of small components if these lenses start being mass produced.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if this newest invention really does become the game changer it has the potential of evolving into.