Metalenz has announced Polar 3D, a new set of imaging capabilities that extends the company’s Polar ID face authentication platform from security applications into digital presence, avatar generation, and realistic relighting, all from a single image processed on-device.
The Boston-based metasurface optics company is demonstrating Polar 3D at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona alongside its existing Polar ID authentication product.
Polar 3D uses monocular shape-from-polarization imaging to capture studio-quality, lighting-independent 3D facial data from a single image without requiring scans, multiple camera angles, or cloud-side reconstruction pipelines. The system works by separating diffuse and specular reflections at the sensor level, distinguishing true skin tone and texture from glare and lighting artifacts. The result is facial surface data that carries consistently across environments and downstream applications regardless of original lighting conditions.
For end users, the technology enables naturally relightable selfies, photorealistic avatars that retain fine human detail, and improved fidelity in virtual try-on and co-presence applications. Because polarization information is captured optically at the sensor rather than estimated in software, downstream compute requirements are dramatically reduced, making the technology viable for smartphones, laptops, and other consumer devices at mass-market scale.
Polar 3D is built on the same sensor-level metasurface architecture as Polar ID, Metalenz’s existing polarization-based face authentication technology designed to prevent spoofing. The company has been advancing the platform through customer integration trials targeting 2026 device deployment, an expanded licensing agreement with STMicroelectronics, and Samsung ISOCELL Vizion 931 sensor integration supporting the Polar ID hardware stack. The two products share hardware, forming what Metalenz describes as a unified optical platform that can establish identity trust for security applications while enabling digital realism through a single sensor module.
“The same polarization data that verifies a real human is present for secure authentication can now enable more expressive, interactive experiences,” said Rob Devlin, CEO and Co-Founder of Metalenz. “That means realistic relighting, improved rendering, and richer digital identity, all without adding hardware complexity.”
Sources: GlobeNewswire
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
