The capabilities of modern smartphone cameras can be expanded to unprecedented limits, and everyday mobile devices can be used as super-powerful microscopes. This idea is suggested by the SmartMicroOptics startup, which achieved success three years ago on Kickstarter with Blips devices for photographing the microworld with the help of smartphones. The updated concept offers a DIPLE device that allows you to achieve an image magnification of 1000 times or more.
This time, the company is working on the Indiegogo site and is positioning the new DIPLE device as a powerful microscope for any smartphone, allowing research that was previously only available in laboratory conditions.
Preparing for microphotography with a DIPLE device takes just a few seconds. Photographs of the microscopic world are taken in HD resolution. The overall dimensions of the device are 176 x 100 x 40 mm (optical resolution 1 μm), and it can be used in conjunction with any smartphone camera models.
The DIPLE device is hermetic, which allows shooting videos in a transparent liquid. In addition, the DIPLE design uses a modular principle, which allows you to quickly replace lenses with more powerful ones or replace worn accessories. It is noteworthy that the price of the device is below $100. The case is made of metal, which will ensure safety even when the device is dropped from the height of 10 meters.
The DIPLE lens kit is divided into three modifications. The basic DIPLE RED guarantees an optical magnification up to 35 times (resolution 3 μm, field of view about 1 mm). You can consider the simplest organisms. DIPLE GREY provides 75-time optical magnification with a resolution of 1 micron – which allows you to observe bacteria or cells. The DIPLE BLACK modification provides optical zoom up to 150 times with a resolution of 0.7 / 0.8 microns, which allows you to see the structure of the cell or bacteria.
The data obtained during DIPLE macro photography can be processed using the digital zoom of a particular smartphone, which magnifies the image up to 1,000 times or more.
In case of successful completion of the project on Indiegogo, the company plans to start the production of DIPLE devices this month, and the delivery of the first smartphone microscopes to users will begin in the middle of the year.
