LG Electronics and Infineon Technologies AG have teamed up to introduce Time-of-Flight (ToF) technology to smartphone selfie photo lovers world over.

LG says that Infineon’s REAL3 image sensor chip will play a key role in the front-facing camera of the upcoming LG G8 ThinQ, to be unveiled in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress 2019. Building upon the combined expertise of Infineon and pmdtechnologies in algorithms for processed 3D point clouds (a set of data points in space produced by 3D scanning), the sensor promises to deliver a new level of front camera capability in a smartphone.

While other 3D technologies utilize complex algorithms to calculate an object’s distance from the camera lens, the ToF image sensor chip delivers more accurate measurements by capturing infrared light as it is reflected off the subject. As a result, ToF is faster and more effective in ambient light, reducing the workload on the application processor thereby also reducing power consumption.

And due to its fast response speed, ToF technology is widely used in various biometric authentication methods, such as face-recognition. What’s more, because ToF sees objects in 3D and is not affected by light from external sources, it delivers an excellent recognition rate, both indoors and out, ideal for implementation in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications.

Infineon developed the ToF technology featured in the LG G8 ThinQ for use in both premium, high-end smartphones as well as mid-end devices.

Smartphones including the Honor View 20, OPPO R17 Pro, and more are already supporting the Time-of-Flight (TOF) technology.