Google and Microsoft have joined the I3A (International Imaging Industry Association) and more importantly the CPIQ (Camera Phone Image Quality) Initiative. What does this mean to you? A 3rd party organization is going to give star ratings to camera phones and then slap them on retail boxes in the hopes that consumers actually pay attention to their newly developed metric instead of going “OMFG 12 MEGAPIXELS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN 8 MEGAPIXELS!!!”.
What is the I3A going to benchmark?
- Texture blur (introduced by noise smoothing)
- Luminance uniformity across image field
- Signal to Noise and Dynamic Range
- Color consistency and white balance
- Sensitivity, Exposure and Tone Reproduction
- Blemishes and Artifacts
- Color: Preference and Reproduction
- Depth of field
- Veiling glare and stray light
Who are members of the CPIQ Initiative as of today?
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Aptina Imaging, CDM Optics, DxO Labs, Eastman Kodak Company, Foveon, Freescale Semiconductor, FUJIFILM, Hewlett-Packard Image Engineering, Motorola, Nethra Imaging, Nokia, NVIDIA, OmniVision Technologies, Palm, Phillips Lumileds Lighting, Sensata Technologies, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Sprint, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Tessera (formerly FotoNation), Vista Point Technologies, and Zoran Corporation.
When are we, the consumers, going to see these new metrics? Absolutely no clue. What is that hideous looking thing at the top of this blog post? A 3 gigapixel, yes gigapixel, camera.