[nickparker]

Has anybody reverse engineered the interface for Apple's camera modules, particularly the front modules with LIDAR?

They can be had for $10 a pop on Alibaba now, and they're much nicer than similarly priced webcams let alone LIDARs.

Seems like a part that's ripe for a raspberry pi interface board.

[starky]

I would be very surprised if the camera modules put out anything different than the standard image sensor interfaces such as SPI, MIPI, and SLVS. Anything else would require extra circuitry that is too big. Then it just becomes a case of figuring out the control for the lens module.

[braincode]

I'm actually surprised that nobody tried to poke into those lines yet and built something similar to https://hackaday.com/2021/07/05/how-to-drive-smartphone-scre... but for the camera.

Actually, since that project above links to a iPhone 4 screen as an example, I'd perhaps err into probing for MIPI signals on an iPhone 6S camera first, perhaps using sth like https://hackaday.com/2018/11/29/mipi-csi-2-implementation-in...?

This post is fascinating, btw: https://www.circuitvalley.com/2020/01/spi-mipi-bridge-fpga-v...

[bydo]

The front iPhone camera uses an infrared array of dots for FaceID, not LIDAR. It's basically a miniaturized version of the Kinect from the Xbox (Apple bought the company that created it).

[tpmx]

The Face ID/TrueDepth sensor is however made by Austrian 'ams AG', not Apple.

[mkoc]

The sensor is from ST. Besides many previous publications/reveng/leaks, this is also in the systemplus slides on page 16, top right.

[tpmx]

This, though? https://www.reuters.com/article/apple-forecast-ams-idUSL8N1Z...

AMS provides Apple with optical sensors for 3D facial recognition features on its newest smartphones

“We see a risk that Apple moves to dual sourcing for the face ID – which currently is single sourced from AMS - in order not to rely on deliveries from just one supplier and also in order to have a favorable pricing power,” said Hauck & Aufhaeuser analysts in a note to clients.

[KMnO4]

I wonder what quality the “raw” camera has. My understanding is that the software has a bigger difference on the end result than the actual optics. So much so that Apple has a dedicated image processor as part of the Bionic chip.

Not to mention the “neural engine” that’s used for depth processing and segmentation.

[achow]

Image from any digital camera (SLR or Phone) is result of computation, unlike that from film camera where image is result of chemical reactions.

Optics (glass) does not play much role in phone camera cost or product development; but the cost (effort) is a factor of sensor, CPUs, NPUs, DSPs (hardware) and then investment in writing image processing software.

[cronix]

> software has a bigger difference on the end result than the actual optics

Not everyone wants artificially manipulated photos that you can instantly upload to instagram without any post work. But, you do need good optics and sensor to capture good photos - the rest is post manipulation. Do you think RED or ARRI cameras cost $50k+ for their built in software? Nope, they don't actually have any of the "neural net" hype you've bought into from Apple's marketing. It's all done in post. Practically nothing you see in the movies or TV or Netflix or other professional broadcast is done on Apple toy cameras using their state of the art "neural engine" software. I haven't read about or seen any, but I reserve the right to be wrong so I said "practically."

Besides, you got to start somewhere and the camera interface would come before the splashy software built on top of it.

Just give me the RAW/flat log files (that contain the most information and dynamic range) and I will do the rest with a real editing program that cost almost as much as your phone itself, and look way better.

[kaba0]

It’s not (just) marketing. You can try to “brute-force” your way up in image quality by increasing sensor size, better lens, etc, but there is a point where it gives you diminishing returns.

I’m not deeply familiar with high-end professional cameras, but low-mid pro cameras sort of slept for a long time while phone cameras had to play around the trivial upgrade route of bigger sensors and go the harder route to more intelligent sensors. There is a really interesting article about it that I may try to dig out, but there are such great tricks in modern phones like using the not that great lens stabilization to an advantage where minor movements of our hand will render the same physical position to several adjacent “colored” sensor positions and a clever NN can use this additional information to increase the lost sensors size inherent in colored picture taking. Also, HDR photos simply need intelligence.

All in all, in certain (rare) situations a newer iphone may very well shoot a much better photo than a DSLR camera no matter the comparatively tiny sensor size. Also, just think about the way the black hole was photographed - it also didn’t use an Earth-sized sensor, but the effect was similar if it have used one.

[thrashh]

Your RAW/flat log files are also artificially manipulated too FYI and when you edit RAW, you just delay that artificial manipulation until you get to a computer.

Short of a 3CCD prism setup, most cameras use Bayer (or other) filters that capture a close but false image that then is reprocessed back to an approximation of the scene.

When people talk about smartphones having better processing, it just means on top of demosaicing, the software might be applying additional algorithms.

P.S. RED cameras don’t use 3CCD yet still cost $50k+ implying artificial manipulation is the way to go due to cost and physical limitations.

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

Are they available for $10 or is that the price some "iPhone Teardown!!" article wrote?

Because I tend to be sceptical of those articles. They start with the premise of "everything is worth as much as the sum of its component parts", which is already hit on their credibility (if they did the same, recursively, they'd notice that nothing is worth anything). Then, they guess some random values for Apple's purchasing costs.

[rowanG077]

I'm not sure why you asking this. The poster quite obviously indicates you can trivially buy them on Aliexpress. You can verify this yourself in less time then it took to type this comment. And indeed the front-facing camera can be had for very cheap. The back module with Lidar is more expensive though.