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Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

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Re: Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

#221
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meshes I've seen from nerfs are pretty horrible and you lose many of the things that make nerfs interesting in the first place.

That doesn't make much sense. You should be able to get arbitrarily good meshes by generating more and more viewpoints.

OK. So that's using a render of a NERFfield as input into photogrammetry? Yeah - that might be more feasible. I was talking about directly generating a mesh from the NERF density itself (marching cubes).

But NERFs can capture and render things that are very difficult subjects for photogrammetry: Fur, vegetation, reflective or transparent surfaces etc.

Re: Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

#223

It would be really great to recreate loved ones after they have past in some sort of digital space. As I’ve gotten older, and my parents get older as well, I’ve been thinking more about what my life will be like in old age (and beyond too). I’ve also been thinking what I would want “heaven” to be. Eternal life doesn’t appeal to me much. Imagine living a quadrillion years. Even as a god, that would be miserable. That…

“Mom do you remember the walk we took around the lake just before you died?”

“Yes what a wonderful day. I also fondly remember the Adidas sneakers I wore. Did you know they’re 25% off at Target this weekend only?”

Re: Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

#224
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working with simple voxel data let’s you do all kinds of normal image manipulation techniques, and it’s not clear how you would do some of those with a nerf. Any image transformation you can do on voxels you can straightforwardly transfer to nerfs. Voxel data is just a lookup table from discrete positions to material properties like color and density. When you apply a transform, you change the inputs (e.g. multiply…

> Any image transformation you can do on voxels you can straightforwardly transfer to nerfs No. > it might be cheaper to do it on the fly instead of redoing the training procedure to bake the change into the model. I think it’s a bit more complex than you imagine; it’s not “cheaper/not cheaper”; it’s literally the only way of doing it. If you have a transformation f(x) that takes a pixel array as in input and returns…

> Consider taking a layered svg and applying a box blur.

> Now you want an svg again.

> It’s not a trivial problem. Lines blur and merge, you have reconstruct an entirely new svg.

Nerfs are not svgs.

Consider taking a nerf and applying a box blur. Easy, a box blur on voxel data takes multiple samples within a box and averages them together, so to do the same thing to a nerf just take multiple samples and average them together.

That does get slower the more samples you need, but you never have to materialize a full voxel representation.

Re: Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

#225

It would be really great to recreate loved ones after they have past in some sort of digital space. As I’ve gotten older, and my parents get older as well, I’ve been thinking more about what my life will be like in old age (and beyond too). I’ve also been thinking what I would want “heaven” to be. Eternal life doesn’t appeal to me much. Imagine living a quadrillion years. Even as a god, that would be miserable. That…

> It would be really great to recreate loved ones after they have past in some sort of digital space.

Tim Heidecker did this with his son Tom Cruise, Jr. Heidecker and it was quite moving: https://youtu.be/2fVQtmMN_ao?t=178

Re: Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, I'd give it the benefit of the doubt. Either way, I think it is fair to note that other cultures see death & remembrance in different ways.

Curious how you find other cultures and belief systems are? In Hinduism, at least I can attest that there is the concept of "mourn and move on" in that the body is not even preserved, it is freed of its physical form through cremation. The fire into the funeral pyre is instilled by hand by the eldest son - it's a poetic closure.

If you do a search for "ancestor worship" you'll find a few examples. It seems more common among Asian cultures, perhaps specifically those with a Buddhist tradition, but that's what I happen to be more familiar with so it may be common outside of that as well.

Re: Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

#228
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather entertaining when this happens in the opposite direction automatically too: https://twitter.com/mitchcohen/status/1476351601862483968

It was already debunked. If you scroll down in that Twitter thread, you read: > Big news! I sent @sdw the original image. He theorized a leaf from a foreground tree obscured the face. I didn’t think anything was in view, and the closest tree is a Japanese Maple (smaller leaves). But he’s right! Here’s a video I just shot, showing the parallax. Wow!

Aw. But I guess it's better than too-fancy AI in the phone :)

TIL though, thank you!

Re: Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bs. People do different things. But nobody can sit around wallowing in the VR. Having seen what death of my cousin and grand parents did to the family, moving on helped every one heal in a way. VR would have been a torture to live in.

You are taking the worst possible interpretation of my comment. I was responding to literally the aspect of the GP that said "mourn.... move on" It is a factual matter, easily discovered through simple searches, that non-Western cultures often take a different approach. Including, literally, ancestor worship. I am not making a judgement on which is better. I believe there are multiple healthy ways of dealing with gri…

I think by "move on" they meant moving forward with life and getting through your grief.

You are absolutely right though that there are different ways of dealing with grief!

Re: Nvidia Research Turns 2D Photos into 3D Scenes

#230
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I get the unstated implication. I don't think it would be fair to apply it to me even though I think it may be fair to apply it to e.g. Kurzweil, unless he's made recent statements suggesting otherwise (I don't keep up with him). I currently have no expectation of seeing a convincing simulation/resurrection/recreation/continuation of any of them, or the ones I currently anticipate losing over the next few de…

Would you want to have an avatar of them? I don't think I would.

If the 'avatar' is convincing and can have a continued existence as a person independent of my interaction with it, i.e. I don't "have" them as a form of possession, yes. It does seem better than 50/50 to me though that some (maybe all) wouldn't want continued existence and would decide to go back to not existing (for all I can tell), there may even be strong predictive signs of that in the brain models such that they don't even need to be temporarily brought back and asked or first made to listen to arguments or just have some final-final talks with me/others before deciding. I'd accept that.

For less convincing avatars where the point is just my own benefit of conversing with something like them when I want, from slightly like them to eerily like them, for one it's a weak yes, for the others I'm more indifferent -- it'd be more in the realm of curiosity than desire, like talking to a historical figure or a fictional character. The weak yes I expect will get weaker (as it already has, despite non-linear flare-ups/resurgences where it's temporarily stronger) and eventually match the others after long enough.

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