Microsoft Pix • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Pix

#31

Post by rodgerd » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:07 PM UTC

kemiller2002 wrote: post #18

Analemma_ wrote: post #10

This feels sort of redundant... that feature list (multiple face detection with auto exposure/white balance, burst mode with an algorithm to guess which one is "best") is all stuff the built-in camera app on iOS does already. Okay, the color and white balance look a little better for Pix in the example shots, but everyone's RAW processing is better in some situations and worse in others. I'm sure Apple could come bac…

I could be totally wrong, but if I had to guess, they are using it to show off / validate their work on Microsoft Cognitive Services (Project Oxford). It has facial recognition, along with a number of other things, and so this would be an easy way of getting data on possible problems they have and how well their algorithms work. Just a guess though.

Facial recognition is pretty much solid for most cameras now, though. Face registration, which Sony have been rolling into some E-mount cameras, would be more impressive.

Re: Microsoft Pix

#32

Post by JustSomeNobody » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:08 PM UTC

tdkl wrote: post #7

mtgx wrote: post #4

> Better mobile photos are just a tap away. Enter your mobile phone number and we'll text you a link to download Microsoft Pix. Stop teaching people to click on links from SMS texts damn it!

Nice way to gather mobile numbers, not even needed to build a social network first.

Nice vector for maliciousness.

Re: Microsoft Pix

#33

Post by awqrre » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:08 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #9

There's an interesting example they use to show the ostensible improvement of Pix over the Apple's Live Photo: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... The Pix-enhanced version: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... Sure, the Live Photo version has distracting movement, but it also has much more natural motion in terms of hair flow. And I feel that the camera instabili…

they didn't pick the most in-focus frame for the still picture in the pix-enhanced version

Re: Microsoft Pix

#34

Post by jandrese » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #9

There's an interesting example they use to show the ostensible improvement of Pix over the Apple's Live Photo: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... The Pix-enhanced version: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... Sure, the Live Photo version has distracting movement, but it also has much more natural motion in terms of hair flow. And I feel that the camera instabili…

The Pix version looks like one of those old computer games when they wanted to animate some wind, but cut only afford to animate a handful of sprites on the screen. So everything is stiff as a board except for some flipping scarves/hair/etc...

Re: Microsoft Pix

#35

Post by vernie » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #16

Great demo page. I really love the "People-Centric" feature, especially how the demo shows after shot enhancements for a variety of skin tones. Thank you Microsoft.

I had the opposite reaction. I found it humorous that the face detection didn't seem to work reliably (e.g. never detecting the guy in the lower right of the indoor restaurant scene), even in their own demo video.

Re: Microsoft Pix

#36

Post by nathancahill » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

gisenberg wrote: post #19

Insane. That page loads in 111 network requests totaling about 40MB.

I got 130 totaling 20MB, but still insane. At least some of them are loaded after the initial render.

Re: Microsoft Pix

#37

Post by jandrese » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:15 PM UTC

gisenberg wrote: post #19

Insane. That page loads in 111 network requests totaling about 40MB.

This is what happens when you make everything an API and try to hide all of the details. People program as the docs tell them to, not realizing that what they're doing requires a hideous amount of complexity under the hood. It is sadly rare for an API to actually mention that a particular method is expensive.

Re: Microsoft Pix

#38

Post by muzster » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:15 PM UTC

Sorry for my naivety and maybe a little off topic - but where are the raw image files used in the comparison images ?

I'm sure someone is going to cry foul if the images have been passed through Photoshop.

Re: Microsoft Pix

#39

Post by trzeci » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:17 PM UTC

I thought that they released new version of DirectX SDK and PIX for debugging :( https://tomtech999.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/pix_intro.png

Re: Microsoft Pix

#40

Post by smartbit » Mon, Sep 12, 2016, 9:18 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #9

There's an interesting example they use to show the ostensible improvement of Pix over the Apple's Live Photo: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... The Pix-enhanced version: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... Sure, the Live Photo version has distracting movement, but it also has much more natural motion in terms of hair flow. And I feel that the camera instabili…

Easy pick: the Apple version is natural, the Microsoft one is artificial. Maybe some cultural thing and Americans like the unnatural steady shot, I'm from the old continent and am completely distracted by the unnatural look of the Microsoft version.

Microsoft research came up with http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hype... and it was great. But Microsoft Pix, not for me.