I’ve devised a new device that might become part of a future phone, or before that, a niche industrial and scientific tool. It works like this: you place it on any surface, say a paper with text, move it like a mouse, and end up with a 3D scan of the surface displayed on your screen. If there’s text, for example, it can be recognized, even if it’s inside an envelope. However, there probably are better industrial applications for such a device.
Technically: it uses a high-frequency ultrasonic sensor array (100–300 MHz) capable of distinguishing paper microreliefs and ink with up to 20-micron resolution—similar to what’s currently done in fingerprint scanners. A typical Qualcomm 3D Sonic Gen 2 piezo scanner measures 8×8 mm. The sensors have a resolution of up to 500 dpi. Motion data is collected from an IMU and an optical encoder (like in a mouse), to accurately stitch scan fragments into a unified image. It will work in darkness, with poor contrast, on semi-transparent paper, with zero dependence on lighting. It can detect hidden writings, fingerprints, or cleaned areas. Essentially, it will perform an in-depth analysis, down to detecting traces of pencil pressure.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 