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Stereolabs

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Stereolabs
Information
Type Subsidiary
Industry Computer vision, stereo depth cameras
Founded 2010
Founder Cecile Schmollgruber, Edwin Azzam, Olivier Braun
Headquarters Montrouge, France (registered office); offices in San Francisco, New York and Paris
Notable Personnel Cecile Schmollgruber (CEO), Edwin Azzam (CTO), Olivier Braun (lead developer)
Products ZED stereo cameras, ZED Mini, ZED X, ZED Box, ZED SDK
Parent Ouster (since February 2026)
Website https://www.stereolabs.com


Stereolabs (also written StereoLabs) is a French computer vision company that makes the ZED line of stereo depth cameras and the ZED SDK software used with them.[1][2] Its cameras are passive stereo cameras: they capture two synchronized left and right video streams, from which software on a host computer calculates depth, in a similar way to human binocular vision.[3] In VR and AR the company is best known for the ZED mini, a small stereo camera that clips onto the front of a VR headset such as the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift and turns it into a video see-through AR headset.[4]

Its later products have mainly been used in robotics, industrial automation and smart infrastructure. The lidar maker Ouster acquired Stereolabs on 4 February 2026. At that point Stereolabs had shipped more than 90,000 ZED cameras to more than 10,000 customers.[5]

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Checked founding, registry, acquisition, product, price, SDK, XR and research claims against the cited Ouster SEC exhibit, French registry data, Stereolabs pages and archives, press articles and the three papers. About review dates.

History

Stereoscopic 3D processing

According to the company, its co-founders met at the Institut d'Optique in Paris, where they first worked on an algorithm to stabilize 3D surgical video and reduce viewing discomfort. The company says it then applied the same stabilization work to cinema, including footage for James Cameron's film Avatar.[1] The French business register records the creation of STEREOLABS, a simplified joint-stock company (SAS) with its registered office in Montrouge near Paris, on 9 February 2010. Schmollgruber is listed as its president, and Azzam and Braun as general managers (directeurs généraux).[2] The current company site and Ouster's acquisition announcement also give 2010 as the founding year,[1][5] although an archived 2014 version of the company's website said Stereolabs was "Founded in 2006".[6]

In its first years, Stereolabs sold tools for stereoscopic 3D film and television production. In February 2011 it launched PURE, a live 3D production system that automatically aligned left and right images and corrected lens, sensor and geometric mismatches on set, with demonstrations scheduled for the BVE trade show on 15-17 February. Edwin Azzam was then the company's chief executive.[7] By 2014 its website listed three products: PURE (a stereo image processor), PURE On-Set (video assist and monitoring) and VERITY (3D quality control). The site also described offices in Paris, Los Angeles and Hong Kong and named the venture capital firm CapDecisif Management as an investor.[6]

ZED cameras

According to the company, its founders then set out to bring 3D vision to other industries and built their own stereo camera, the ZED.[1] In March 2015 the ZED was on pre-order for US$449, and the company's site said the first batch had sold out.[8] By November 2015 it was on general sale at the same price, with worldwide shipping, and the site listed AR and VR next to cars, drones and robots as target uses.[9] The ZED is a passive stereo camera. It sends side-by-side video over USB 3.0, and the host computer's NVIDIA graphics processor computes the depth map using CUDA.[3] At CES in January 2016, Stereolabs launched ZEDfu, a 3D scanning application for the camera. TechCrunch reported at the time that the company had SDKs for Windows and Linux, integrations with the Oculus Rift, OpenCV, Matlab and ROS, and a project with NVIDIA to bring the technology into cars.[10]

Stereolabs opened pre-orders for the ZED Mini in September 2017, and Road to VR reported that first shipments were set to begin on 18 December 2017.[4] The ZED 2, announced on 20 December 2019, introduced a neural network for stereo matching, a 110 by 70 degree field of view and extra sensors (barometer, magnetometer and temperature sensors next to the IMU).[11] On 7 December 2022 the company announced the ZED X and ZED X Mini. Both have an IP66-rated aluminium enclosure, global-shutter sensors and a GMSL2 connection, and they were designed for robots working indoors and outdoors with NVIDIA's Jetson AGX Orin. Pre-orders were priced at US$599 for the ZED X and US$549 for the ZED X Mini.[12]

Acquisition by Ouster

Ouster, a San Francisco lidar company listed on Nasdaq, completed its purchase of Stereolabs SAS on 4 February 2026 and announced the deal on 9 February. It paid about US$35 million in cash and 1.8 million shares, 0.7 million of which are released over four years. Ouster reported that Stereolabs had unaudited 2025 revenue of about US$16 million. Stereolabs now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary, and the three co-founders continue to lead it.[5] Its website now lists Ouster's digital LiDAR next to the ZED cameras.[1]

Products

Product Introduced Notes
ZED 2015 USB 3.0 stereo camera; 120 mm baseline; up to 4416x1242 side-by-side video at 15 fps (2.2K), 1080p at 30 fps, 720p at 60 fps, VGA at 120 fps; depth range 1.5-20 m in the 2015 specification; 159 g; US$449[3][8]
ZED mini 2017 Compact camera with a 63 mm baseline, close to the human eye separation, and a built-in IMU; designed to mount on VR headsets for pass-through AR; US$449 at launch, from US$399 in the Stereolabs store as of October 2026[13][14][15]
ZED 2 2019 Neural stereo matching; 110 by 70 degree field of view; IMU, barometer, magnetometer and temperature sensors[11]
ZED 2i USB stereo camera with IP66 protection, an optional polarizer and a choice of 2.1 mm (wide) or 4 mm (narrow) lenses; from US$499 in the Stereolabs store as of October 2026[16]
ZED X and ZED X Mini 2022 (announced) GMSL2 stereo cameras with global-shutter sensors and IP66 enclosures for robots[12]
ZED X One GMSL2 camera that can be set up for monocular vision on NVIDIA Jetson platforms[17]
ZED Box Host computers in the current product range; Stereolabs names the ZED Box Orin and ZED Box Mini as supported platforms for its GMSL2 cameras[1][17]

The ZED SDK provides depth sensing, positional tracking, spatial mapping and object and body tracking. Version 5.5.0, released on 17 September 2026, is the latest release listed as of 15 October 2026.[18]

XR work

Stereolabs targeted VR headsets early. A November 2015 company tutorial explained how to show the ZED's live stereoscopic video inside an Oculus Rift DK2.[19] The ZED Mini was built for this use from the start. Each unit shipped with a mount for the Rift or the Vive. Road to VR reported that the camera builds a real-time geometric map of the room and fuses it with its onboard IMU for positional tracking, and that developers could bring Vive, Touch and PS Move controllers into pass-through AR experiences.[4] ZED SDK 2.3, the release that added ZED Mini support, brought stereo pass-through to both Unity and Unreal Engine, along with a new visual-inertial tracking mode and a latency-reduction technique that Stereolabs calls Video Async Reprojection.[20]

In a December 2017 hands-on, UploadVR's David Jagneaux wrote that the ZED Mini was "still basically a devkit". He reported that tracking never got lost during his demos and that he noticed only a slight delay between movement and image. The camera's 110-degree field of view was still smaller than what the headsets' lenses could show; the article contrasted it with the 35 degrees of the Microsoft HoloLens.[14] In April 2018 Stereolabs published its own comparison with the camera-based AR of the HTC Vive Pro (HTC's SRWorks SDK). The company stated that the ZED Mini delivered 720p pass-through against the Vive Pro's 480p, but with a narrower vertical field of view (60 degrees against 80 degrees), and that it needed an NVIDIA GTX 1060 or better because the SDK is built on CUDA.[21] In August 2018 the company showed Ping Pong AR, a two-player Unreal Engine demo. The players' positions were synchronized with SteamVR Lighthouse base stations, and ZED Mini depth maps were used for occlusion of the players' arms. Stereolabs said the video pipeline it developed for the project kept motion-to-photon latency below 60 ms.[22]

Research use

Researchers have used ZED cameras in academic work, including perception studies on video see-through AR. At CHI 2021, Kevin Pfeil and colleagues at the University of Central Florida tested 26 participants wearing an HTC Vive fitted with a ZED Mini. They found that people underestimated real-world distances through the headset, a significant difference from normal viewing, and suggested the reduced field of view was partly responsible.[23] A 2022 study by Haley Adams and colleagues at Vanderbilt University and the University of Utah used a Vive Pro with a ZED Mini as its video see-through AR condition, next to VR and an optical see-through HoloLens 1. In that setup the camera feed limited the image to 1280x720 and a 90 by 60 degree field of view.[24] For the original ZED, Luis Enrique Ortiz and colleagues at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte built an error model of its depth data at several resolutions and distances. They found it most effective up to about 16 m in real time.[25]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "About Us". Stereolabs. https://www.stereolabs.com/en-us/company. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "STEREOLABS (SIREN 520 325 499)". Annuaire des Entreprises. French government. https://annuaire-entreprises.data.gouv.fr/entreprise/520325499. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "ZED - Tech Specs". Stereolabs (archived by the Internet Archive, 28 March 2015). https://web.archive.org/web/20150328180442/http://www.stereolabs.com/zed/specs/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Ben Lang (2017-12-13). "Update: ZED Mini Turns Rift and Vive into an AR Headset From the Future". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/zed-mini-turns-rift-vive-high-end-ar-dev-kit/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Ouster Acquires StereoLabs, Creating a World-Leading Physical AI Sensing and Perception Company". Ouster, Inc. Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 2026-02-09. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1816581/000119312526041917/d84917dex991.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "About - Stereolabs". Stereolabs (archived by the Internet Archive, 9 April 2014). https://web.archive.org/web/20140409094548/http://www.stereolabs.com/company/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  7. ↑ "Stereolabs launches 3D production processor". Broadcast. 2011-02-08. https://broadcastnow.co.uk/stereolabs-launches-3d-production-processor/5023401.article. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "ZED - Stereo Camera for Depth Sensing". Stereolabs (archived by the Internet Archive, 25 March 2015). https://web.archive.org/web/20150325220629/http://www.stereolabs.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  9. ↑ "ZED - Stereo Camera for Depth Sensing". Stereolabs (archived by the Internet Archive, 21 November 2015). https://web.archive.org/web/20151121113602/https://www.stereolabs.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  10. ↑ Frederic Lardinois (2016-01-06). "Stereolabs's Depth-Sensing Camera Helps Robots, Drones And Cars See". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/stereolabss-depth-sensing-camera-helps-robots-drones-and-cars-see/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Introducing ZED 2". Stereolabs. 2019-12-20. https://www.stereolabs.com/blog/introducing-zed-2. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 The Robot Report Staff (2022-12-07). "Stereolabs launches ZED-X cameras for indoor, outdoor robots". The Robot Report. https://www.therobotreport.com/stereolabs-zed-x-camera/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  13. ↑ "Introducing ZED Mini". Stereolabs. https://www.stereolabs.com/blog/introducing-zed-mini. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 David Jagneaux (2017-12-19). "Hands-On: The ZED Mini Is A Camera That Turns Your Rift Or Vive Into An AR Headset". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/zed-mini-camera-turns-rift-vive-ar-headset/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  15. ↑ "ZED Mini Stereo Camera". Stereolabs Store. https://www.stereolabs.com/store/products/zed-mini. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  16. ↑ "ZED 2i Stereo Camera". Stereolabs Store. https://www.stereolabs.com/store/products/zed-2i. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Setting up the ZED X One for Monocular Vision". StereoLabs Docs. https://docs.stereolabs.com/docs/products/cameras/zedxone/monocular-vision. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  18. ↑ "ZED SDK 5.5". StereoLabs Docs. 2026-09-17. https://docs.stereolabs.com/docs/development/zed-sdk/release-notes/5-x/5-5. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  19. ↑ "Using the ZED Stereo Camera with Oculus Rift". Stereolabs Blog (archived by the Internet Archive). 2015-11-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20160315003412/https://www.stereolabs.com/blog/index.php/2015/11/17/using-the-zed-with-oculus/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  20. ↑ "ZED SDK 2.3". StereoLabs Docs. https://docs.stereolabs.com/docs/development/zed-sdk/release-notes/2-x/2-3. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  21. ↑ "Vive Pro AR (SRWorks) vs. ZED Mini". Stereolabs. 2018-04-30. https://www.stereolabs.com/blog/vive-pro-ar-zed-mini. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  22. ↑ "Building Multiplayer AR Experiences with ZED Mini". Stereolabs. 2018-08-30. https://www.stereolabs.com/blog/stereolabs-brings-multiplayer-ar-to-vr-headsets. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  23. ↑ Kevin P. Pfeil, Sina Masnadi, Jacob Belga, Jose-Valentin T. Sera-Josef, Joseph J. LaViola Jr. (2021). "Distance Perception with a Video See-Through Head-Mounted Display". CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21), ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445223. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  24. ↑ Haley Adams, Holly Gagnon, Sarah Creem-Regehr, Jeanine Stefanucci, Bobby Bodenheimer (2022-01-06). "Stay in Touch! Shape and Shadow Influence Surface Contact in XR Displays". arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.01889. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  25. ↑ Luis Enrique Ortiz, Viviana Elizabeth Cabrera, Luiz M. G. Goncalves (2018). "Depth Data Error Modeling of the ZED 3D Vision Sensor from Stereolabs". ELCVIA Electronic Letters on Computer Vision and Image Analysis, vol. 17, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/elcvia.1084. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
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