Canesta Equinox 3-D Sensor

Canesta has announced a new 3-D image sensor that could have applications in machine vision and robotics. What's it do? According to Canesta, the Equinox chip resolves a scene into pixels, as does an ordinary camera chip, but instead of simply providing the brightness of each pixel, Equinox additionally provides the distance from each picture element to the sensor chip. On the downside, the device only provides a 64x64 pixel image and only MS-based, proprietary development software is available at present. Canesta claims it will be a "low-cost" sensor but there's no word yet on a price. At present the sensor is only available as part of a development kit for $7,500. For more technical details, see the developement platform data sheet (PDF format). You can also read more about the sensor in CNET and EE Times articles.