Within just 2 months after the launch its high-end camera Illum, Lytro is planning to make its file format as common as JPEG files.
“One barrier to (adoption) is we are not as widely deployed and accepted as JPEG,” Lytro CEO Jason Rosenthal said during an interview. “We want to start changing that.”
In an effort to get more social, the company is partnering with 500px which will host Lytro images. Users can upload photos to this site and share them with other users.
Lytro uses a new standard dubbed WebGL for 3D graphics, which is an open file format. The new format is available on GitHub.
The new Lytro Illum is scheduled for a July release and the CEO has said that the company has already achieved 60 percent of its sales target for this year. In other words, Lytro has all the July and August productions pre-booked by early adopters. Though he did not reveal the exact figures, he did say that is somewhere between $10 million and $100 million.
Lytro Illum offers post-capture focus changing abilities combined with the more recently introduced perspective shifting features, but resembles a more traditional DSLR. As the camera captures the entire light field, the images can be converted into 3D images post capture as it has all data required to do so.
The camera is targeted at creative “pioneers — ranging from artistic amateurs to experienced professionals” who can “tap into a new wave of graphical storytelling.”
Lytro Illum comes with a 40 megaray light field sensor and uses an 8x optical zoom lens with constant f/2.0 aperture and fast shutter speeds enabling it to capture as much light rays as possible.
