Orbbec, the company behind the camera Astra 3D, brings two more new gadgets to the market.
Persee is a crowdfunded technology that brings together an integrated ARM computer that runs applications without requiring an external processing source and a 3D, depth perceiving camera.
Persee
Persee's hardware configuration features an ARM Cortex A17 quad-core with a speed of 1.8 GHz, while the graphics come from a 600 MHz Mali-T7 GPU that has OpenCL support. It has 2 GB of DDR3 memory, and an internal capacity of 16 GB, from an eMMC flash chip. Adding a MicroSD card can upgrade the storage to 64 GB.
Persee has quite a few connectivity options. Wired connections use the integrated Ethernet jack, while a built-in Bluetooth antenna and 2.4 GHz/5 GHz Wi-Fi allows wireless connections. Only one USB 2.0 port exists and can be used for either external HDDs or input devices. Users can attach a display to the Persee through the HDMI 2.0.
The company declared that it looks forward to see what buyers will create with the technology. 3d movies, reactive signage or advanced robotics are domains where the Persee can be very helpful. Keeping that in mind, the developers equip every device with a dual-boot possibility: Android and Linux.
Android was an obvious choice due to the widespread popularity, and Linux is targeted at the more tech savvy of users who like to tweak the code.
An SDK for Persee will come from Orbbec, containing drivers and tools that work well on any device, be it Windows, Linux, OSX or Android. This package is destined to help independent developers code Persee however they see fit. In addition, the company suggested that the camera has extra features that are locked while the device is in its original case. This means that Orbbec welcomes the way hackers think and encourages users to tweak and mod the gadget as much as they can.
Astra Pro
The Astra Pro camera is the other product Orbbec asks crowdfunding for. Astra Pro uses USB 2.0 to plug into a PC, and since it has no processing power, it requires one in order to function. The gadget is the improved variant of the Astra 3D camera, and its optics are identical to the Persee camera.
Users may use Astra Pro to test apps created for the Persee, or separately. Full body scans, Orbbec says, is one thing Astra Pro can do well, especially when linking additional cameras. Even if Persee does not have the capacity to record and interpret the data from multiple sources at once, a PC could be easily used for 3D scans of bodies or objects.
Astra Pro is built to gather 3D point cloud data in a resolution of 640 x 480, VGA, at 30 fps. It can also record color images in 720p, at the same frame rate. Persee has identical optical features, and both cameras have depth perception ranging from 1.3 feet to over 26 feet.
An Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign is destined to help the company see devices in production as soon as possible. The first 500 supporters get a special price of $99 for the cameras Astra Pro, Astra S, and Astra. Also, Persee backers receive discounts in three steps. Persee will cost $179, $199 and $209 for the first 250, 500 and 750 backers respectively.
After the success of the crowdfunding campaign, it is likely that techies will receive the first Persees as soon as Feb. 2016.
