70D - use of dual pixels to simulate thinner DOF?

[RanL]

Would it be possible to somehow use the distance info obtained from the 70D dual pixels to enable image processing that will simulate thinner DOF?
(What I have in mind the introduction of something like Gaussian blur, where the intensity of blur varies in accordance with the distance of the relevant point in the frame from the imaging sensor.)
Cheers,
Ran

[Doyle4]

Sounds to me you need a Fuji, they have lots of features

DOF is created with how wide the aperture is and your distance from the subject,

[Audionut]

Having a 70D to test, and getting ML running on it, are probably more important and reliant on answering your question.

[cbob]

Interesting idea!

My understanding of phase detection is that it works on edges/differences in the incident light. If so, it's unlikely that the dual-pixel AF will return a 100% populated Z map (per-pixel distance to target) that you could use for creating a synthetic shallow DOF. There are methods to fill in a sparse Z map but not without their own downsides.

Bear in mind that the effect of a shallow DOF is more than a simple Z-dependant Gaussian blur, particularly illustrated by the tendency for highlights to blow out.