Gcam
Software to create great smart phone cameras
Gcam’s mission was to improve photography on mobile devices using software, rather than hardware, enhancing how images are captured and processed. What began as an innovation for Google Glass later powered the Pixel phone camera, as well as applications within Android, YouTube, and Google Photos. The team graduated to Google Research in 2015.
Gcam's software was originally developed for Google Glass.
A Smaller, Smarter Camera
Gcam was initially developed as a solution for a camera that could live within Google Glass, a wearable device designed to capture first-person photos and share their experiences hands-free. The Glass team knew that to win over users, its photography must meet — or rival — existing smartphone cameras.
But Glass’s compact design posed a challenge: its tiny camera let in very little light, and its small image sensor degraded photo quality. Additionally, the device had very limited computing and battery life. A larger camera wasn’t an option, so the team asked itself a different question: What if, instead of improving hardware, we made smarter software choices?
What if, instead of improving the hardware, we made smarter software choices?
Marc Levoy, a computational photography expert and Stanford computer science professor—who got his start designing animation systems for Hanna-Barbera—formed the Gcam team at X in 2011 to help answer this question.
GCam’s HDR+ feature combines multiple short exposures and enhances shadows, preserving both the subject and the sky. Photo of Desolation Wilderness taken on Pixel by Marc Levoy.
Developing Brighter, Sharper Pictures
The team explored a technique called “image fusion,” which rapidly captures a sequence of shots and merges them into a single, higher-quality image. This approach allowed them to render clearer photos in dimly-lit scenes with mixed lighting, resulting in brighter, sharper pictures.
Image fusion debuted in Glass in 2013, and it quickly became clear that this technology had broader applications. As smartphones became the primary way people captured and shared memories, the cameras needed to perform well in any lighting conditions. Gcam’s next iteration of image fusion, called HDR+, went beyond Glass and launched in the Android camera app for the Nexus 5, followed by the Nexus 6 the next year.
A low light comparison captured at dusk: The left image was taken with HDR+ off, while the right image—captured HDR+—is brighter, cleaner, and sharper, capturing much more detail in the subject’s hair and eyelashes. Photos by Florian Kainz.
Gcam Today
After proving its value across multiple products, Gcam graduated to Google Research in 2015. After leaving X, the team expanded its work beyond photography, contributing to technologies acrossAndroid, YouTube, Google Photos and the 360˚ Virtual Reality rig, Jump. In 2016, Gcam’s HDR+ technology powered the critically acclaimed Google Pixel camera. DxOMark, the industry standard for camera ratings, declared it “the best smartphone camera ever made.”
