The Daredevil Camera • Hacker News Board

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#21

Post by nxzero » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:23 PM UTC

Artlav wrote: post #18

Bromskloss wrote: post #11

Yay, a sound-field camera! I've been wondering if such things are made. Should I take the existence of this project as an indication that they aren't? The use case I imagine is finding what part of a machine is emitting a noise, much like how you would use a thermal camera for finding what part of it is running hot.

Not exactly unheard of, but quite rare. I found a company that made large arrays like that, but they seem to operate in near field, measuring only the sound volume. Imagine a wall of microphones next to a truck - you can tell which part of the wheel makes the sound. That sort of stuff. As for an actual "camera" that turns sound into an image - i've never heard of one.

Isn't this exactly what sonar does?

SOund Navigation And Ranging: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#22

Post by rhema » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

"Daredevil" as in vision through sound. Very neat project! I wonder how much people can see in the dark through listening to sound sources by moving their heads for motion parallax.

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#23

Post by nitwit005 » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:26 PM UTC

Excellent project. I appreciate listing the insights along the way.

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#24

Post by Artlav » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:26 PM UTC

visakanv wrote: post #12

ISL wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots.

It's a simultaneously awesome and saddening feeling. Awesome because you know that there are unexpected amazing things that are going to happen. Sad because a bunch of them might give up from lack of exposure, feedback, etc...

Yeah. From the hacker's point of view many such projects seem trivial, not worth bothering to talk about.

You really need a spotter to find out which of your projects are cool and which aren't.

Then again, after trying to post a dozen times and getting nothing, one would just stop trying most of the time, and would work for the attic, so to speak.

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#25

Post by Artlav » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

nxzero wrote: post #21

Artlav wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly unheard of, but quite rare. I found a company that made large arrays like that, but they seem to operate in near field, measuring only the sound volume. Imagine a wall of microphones next to a truck - you can tell which part of the wheel makes the sound. That sort of stuff. As for an actual "camera" that turns sound into an image - i've never heard of one.

Isn't this exactly what sonar does? SOund Navigation And Ranging: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar

Not exactly. A sonar maps a surface using sound, while my camera looks at the sound itself.

Think laser rangefinder on a scanner platform vs a camera.

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#26

Post by yathern » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:30 PM UTC

nxzero wrote: post #21

Artlav wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly unheard of, but quite rare. I found a company that made large arrays like that, but they seem to operate in near field, measuring only the sound volume. Imagine a wall of microphones next to a truck - you can tell which part of the wheel makes the sound. That sort of stuff. As for an actual "camera" that turns sound into an image - i've never heard of one.

Isn't this exactly what sonar does? SOund Navigation And Ranging: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar

No. SONAR sends out an ultrasonic ping and times the response of its echo to get a distance.

This project is similar in that it involves visualization from audio, but apart from that, it's quite difference. This is the ability to see a sound. To derive the positions of arbitrary sounds in a viewing plane, and render it like you would a picture or video.

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#27

Post by ProAm » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:31 PM UTC

Artlav wrote: post #18

Bromskloss wrote: post #11

Yay, a sound-field camera! I've been wondering if such things are made. Should I take the existence of this project as an indication that they aren't? The use case I imagine is finding what part of a machine is emitting a noise, much like how you would use a thermal camera for finding what part of it is running hot.

Not exactly unheard of, but quite rare. I found a company that made large arrays like that, but they seem to operate in near field, measuring only the sound volume. Imagine a wall of microphones next to a truck - you can tell which part of the wheel makes the sound. That sort of stuff. As for an actual "camera" that turns sound into an image - i've never heard of one.

Doesn't the army use something like this in the field to determine enemy sniper locations when they are taking pot shots?

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#28

Post by colechristensen » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:31 PM UTC

nxzero wrote: post #21

Artlav wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly unheard of, but quite rare. I found a company that made large arrays like that, but they seem to operate in near field, measuring only the sound volume. Imagine a wall of microphones next to a truck - you can tell which part of the wheel makes the sound. That sort of stuff. As for an actual "camera" that turns sound into an image - i've never heard of one.

Isn't this exactly what sonar does? SOund Navigation And Ranging: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar

No.

Most sonar is active (sends out pings) and has only one input (one microphone)

It builds pictures by directing the ping and measuring time until the response.

This is fundamentally different than an array of microphones passively listening to, and creating a fine grained picture of some sound source.

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#29

Post by jo-m » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

Bromskloss wrote: post #11

Yay, a sound-field camera! I've been wondering if such things are made. Should I take the existence of this project as an indication that they aren't? The use case I imagine is finding what part of a machine is emitting a noise, much like how you would use a thermal camera for finding what part of it is running hot.

There is a Swiss startup called Distran (http://www.distran.ch/) which develops ultrasound cameras. They also have a spherical version which looks really cool and allows 360deg sight, unfortunately I cannot find anything about that one on the website anymore.

Re: The Daredevil Camera

#30

Post by bcherny » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

This would be pretty powerful if you combine it with speech recognition. If you put this array in the middle of a crowded room, can you better tease apart different audio sources?