
I made my own image sensor and digital camera [video] - glax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaXweP73NT4
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ruslan
Using decapped DRAM chip as photo sensor looks more promising:

[https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-
dram-...](https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/)

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jdsully
I wonder how good images could be with modern DRAM. A 256MB DDR3 chip would
theoretically have over 2 trillion pixels. Light sensitivity should be better
too due to the smaller capacitors.

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ruslan
Decapping and testing this wont be difficult, meaning you understand how
individual transistors are located on the die to reorder raw data into planar
image. I wonder if this information can be recovered using some known patterns
shown to such sensor then retrieving appropriate data and analyzing.

Another interesting thing is that for training neural networks for image
recognition purpose information about location of individual pixels is not
necessary at all.

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im3w1l
> Another interesting thing is that for training neural networks for image
> recognition purpose information about location of individual pixels is not
> necessary at all.

Convolutions use the spatial information. I'm less sure whether attention-
based approaches typically use it.

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michrassena
Visually, I'm reminded of this project.
[https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/02/drinking-straw-
camera...](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/02/drinking-straw-camera/)

I know CCDs for astrophotography have large photosites to increase the
signal/noise ratio. It seems like this array would have the same qualities.

Do you know what the dynamic range is, how many stops the sensor can capture?

This is really interesting, so I'd really like to see a write-up instead of
just a video.

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perl4ever
How about making a (slow) medium/large format camera with a linear sensor from
a scanner?

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mauvehaus
People have done it. I've seen a couple articles about it, but the one I was
able to dig up today is from Mattias Wandel (of woodgears.ca note):

[https://www.sentex.ca/~mwandel/tech/scanner.html](https://www.sentex.ca/~mwandel/tech/scanner.html)

This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but you run into some of the same
limitations using a scanner as a large format back: moving objects end up
distorted by the movement of the scanner "head" as it scans the image plane.

~~~
agumonkey
Funny to see wandel here. I binged his channel but never knew he made
articles. Anyway distortion is also pretty interesting artistically.

I scavenged a dozen of heads to make a giant wall scanning bar.

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phodo
Well done. The quality of explanation and production value were good. It seems
like by adding more processing power, you can double or triple the scan rate.

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ruslan
From what I understand scan rate depends on exposure time which is quite a bit
high for such a sensor.

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pdelbarba
I bet by changing up the sensor pixels this would be a pretty cost effective
way of making a low res FLIR camera, or really any imaging band. Using a
different pin hole you might even be able to image things with xrays,
neutrons, or strong 100Ghz through THz radio waves.

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metaphor
Fun and a great learning experience, sure. But, at least with respect to
infrared, I'm not seeing the cost effective part when fully integrated
solutions with ~19x greater resolution and then some can be had for $400
retail; the BOM for such a project will approach (if not exceed) this figure.
Prototyping is often deceptively expensive.

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sansnomme
Certain FLIR resolutions beyond a certain density are, let's just say, not
unlike the early days of cryptography.

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ginko
Instead of a front lens element you might get better results using a lens
salvaged from an old medium format folder. The whole lens and shutter assembly
comes off as a single standard sized unit.

These should be a good fit for the needed image circle and give better images
as well.

