New items include:

INFRARED LASERS

INFRARED LEDs

LED Ribbon from Environmentallights.com

LED Emitters/Lights

See the site for more information.  Enjoy

Over the past few months I have had some interest from customers to have a filter made for the m12 modified ps3 eye cameras that would allow it to be used not for infrared light but for the typical visible light. For those customers who purchased cameras in the past with this goal in mind to use the interchangeable m12 lens system with the camera, the only choice has been to deal with the washed out and lack of color from using the lenses without any filtering at all.

I got in contact with my filter supplier and he’s produced a low pass filter sized perfectly for the m12 mount which only allows visible light through, namely in the 400-700nm wavelengths. I have done multiple tests in varying lighting conditions and found that the filter does indeed do a very good job at keeping the colors clear and the image not washed out from the immense amount of infrared light found in sunlight and incandescent bulbs. In ambient lighting conditions that don’t have much of any infrared light, such as total darkness and fluorescent lights, the filter isn’t needed as much but is still important to have.

You can purchase all m12 mount cameras at my store now with the typical infrared band pass filters and also the new low pass filter by itself here.  See below for pictures showing the differences of having the filter on the camera versus not having one on.

(ABOVE: See how washed out the places where the light bounces off the wall are due to all the infrared light in sunlight)

(ABOVE: Colors also get very washed out)

(TWO ABOVE: Florescent light doesn’t make much of a difference)

(ABOVE: Pure infrared light is greatly reduced)

To read more about and to purchase them, see them listed on my online store here.

I decided to research the math from a bunch of different sites which calculated the answers for you, and was surprised to find that some sites differed slightly. With that in mind, I took the formulas that most of them used to work with. When someone advertises that a lens has say 160 degree field of view (FOV), what they are not telling you is that since m12 lenses can be used in 1/3 inch and 1/4 inch camera sensor bearing cameras, their advertised FOV may be different than what you get. The reason is that the PS3 Eye Camera has a 1/4 inch sensor, but calculating the FOV with a 1/3 inch sensor in mind yields a larger FOV. Also, the FOV usually listed is a diagonal FOV, not the horizontal or vertical FOV that most people care about (which reminds me of the headache back when I worked retail at Best Buy on explaining to people that a 19″ wide LCD didn’t mean that the screen was horizontally 19″). So say you see the m12 160 degree 2.1mm lens advertised. What that really means for the ps3 camera is a 116 degree horizontal FOV…confusing, arg.

The excel chart can be downloaded below:
Microsoft Excel 2007 (.xlsx)
Microsoft Excel 2003 (.xls)
If you think a correction is needed or have a suggestion on how to make it better I’d love to hear it.

I made up a first test using the below pattern:

Which I printed out and stuck to a tall candle. Then I just made some simple Papervision3D app of two planes with some bitmaps on them that rotate. The video of the test is below:

Just some fun to start with.

The perfect focus of the after-market lens is important when trying to get very accurate blobs in optical-based multitouch setups, and also when using fiducial patterns like those used by the Reactivision Team.
For finger tracking, the OEM lens can work fine, but should really only be used if on a tight budget, as the results from the more focused image will be better.
Here are some comparison shots using both lenses in a MT table:

(m12 lens)

(Comparison: OEM on left, m12 on right)
The reason why the OEM looks in focus is because the camera is only a few inches from the hand. Once you move away from it more, the image will go out of focus quickly, thus setups with the camera more than a few inches away won’t be in focus.

(OEM lens)

(3.66mm m12 lens)

(2.1mm m12 lens – Fisheye/Wide Angle)

(OEM lens)

(m12 lens)

So as you can see, the screen shots support what I said before. The OEM lens can work for either really short camera distances, or for finger tracking systems that dont need high accuracy.

My store carries both m12 and OEM moddified cameras, so be sure to check it out and let me know if you have any questions.

Tested Materials:
7D006 – grey (Used in the Microsoft Surface Tables)
0D002 – colorless
7D512 – light grey
7D513 – dark grey

Projector: 2500 lumens
Ambient Light: Medium

So after much confusion and questions from the constant flow of multitouch customers trying to figure out exactly what they need to buy to build their MT setups, Environmental Lights has answered with a PDF buying guide. It breaks the process down for you with descriptions on exactly what to buy and url links to the products so that you can easily find what you need.
Environmental Lights also continues to deliver and respond to the Multitouch community. They have recently increased the brightness of their LED ribbons (from 300 to 390 LEDs), which means the possibility of even larger displays can be made with them and better results all around. The results I have been getting in all my testing with their previous ribbons is exactly what I expect from such high quality products, and this new line of products will be even better.

As some members have pointed out, the box type doesn’t mean you’ll get a Good lens or not.
The cameras look exactly the same on the outside, except for the most outer piece on the lens.
These are pictures of the Good one:

These are pictures of the Bad one:

And here they are side by side:

You may not be able to tell that well, but the Good one has a curved outer glass lens piece, and the Bad one has a flat outer lens piece.
When you take it apart, you can see the biggest difference and the cause of the problem with the Bad one (on the left):

Bad one:

Good one:

You’ll notice that the Bad one has a larger outer-most piece of glass than the Good one (on the right).
As far as I can tell, in this camera’s stock lens, there are two pieces of glass and one piece that is the IR blocking filter.
The IR blocking filter is the piece that needs to be removed and replaced with an IR Band Pass filter which you can see in my other ps3 threads.
The problem is that the Bad one has the IR blocking filter between the two other pieces of glass, and the Good one has it closest to the sensor on the PCB.
Thus, you cannot modify the stock lens on the Bad one, without destroying the lens. You will have to buy a new m12 mount and a new lens.
To modify the Good one, just follow the video which you can see at this thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/4189/