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Camera vs. Lidar

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Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#11

Post by threeseed »

tgog wrote: post #3

This completely neglects the fact that humans can build near perfect 3D representations of the world with 2D images stitched together with the parallax neural nets in our brain. This blogpost briefly mentions it in one line as a throwaway and says you'd need extremely high resolution cameras?? Doesn't make sense at all. Two cameras of any resolution spaced a regular distance apart should be able to build a better par…

> near perfect 3D representations of the world with 2D images

This is ridiculous.

I am sitting in front of a monitor right now. Please explain how I can perfectly determine the depth of it even though I can't see behind it ? I can move my ahead all around it to capture hundreds of different viewpoints but a car can't do that.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#12

Post by eatporktoo »

I think all of this discussion about whether or not LIDAR or cameras are better misses the point that really matters- Will cameras actually be good enough to get the job done? If they are then it doesn't matter which is better. You can always add additional sensors and get more information, but engineering has always been a cost vs benefit problem. If adding LIDAR doesn't give a significant benefit in scenarios that cameras are not already good enough, then they might not be worth the additional expense.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#13

Post by jbattle »

mbrumlow wrote: post #7
jsharf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of our ability to judge relative distance is based on our brains judgement of lighting, texture, inference, and sound. While having two eyes helps a lot, you can still navigate a complex office environment with one eye closed. It just takes a bit more care.

When I was younger I remember hearing about how we can do all these things because we have 2 eyes. And that depth perception is what gives us the ability to not walk into walls, and do other things including driving. I have thought about this many times and often wondered why when closing one eye I am still able to function. Sense then I have thought strongly that having depth perception is used for training some oth…

Fun trick: Look at a photograph with one eye closed. Your brain will do ... something and the picture will look 3d

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#14

Post by melling »

rmason wrote: post #10

I suspect this is yet another story sponsored by the Tesla shorts. Just saw an excellent two hour interview by Lex Fridman of George Hotz and he goes into details why he thinks camera will win over lidar. But he also admits that presently Google is ahead of everyone in the race for level 5, but raises the question of whether they can ever do it economically enough to make money on it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…

I believe Tesla’s also have radar.

I also listened to the podcast. George made it sound like the Lidar wasn’t being used for much. It augments the maps to help determine more precise location?

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#15

Post by qes »

xiphias2 wrote: post #9
jsharf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of our ability to judge relative distance is based on our brains judgement of lighting, texture, inference, and sound. While having two eyes helps a lot, you can still navigate a complex office environment with one eye closed. It just takes a bit more care.

About 10 years ago I went to an eye doctor with a small object in my eye, and she had to cover it after removing the small object. Driving back home with 1 eye was scary even though I was going much slower. It is possible to drive with 1 eye, but much much harder than with 2 eyes.

Did you drive any further than just the way home? I would bet most people would adapt quite quickly.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#16

Post by nemothekid »

rmason wrote: post #10

I suspect this is yet another story sponsored by the Tesla shorts. Just saw an excellent two hour interview by Lex Fridman of George Hotz and he goes into details why he thinks camera will win over lidar. But he also admits that presently Google is ahead of everyone in the race for level 5, but raises the question of whether they can ever do it economically enough to make money on it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…

For anyone else who skipped the article - this story likely isn't sponsored by Tesla as it takes a very critical view of Camera-only self driving sensors.

Edit: misread the parent comment

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#17

Post by sairahul82 »

tgog wrote: post #3

This completely neglects the fact that humans can build near perfect 3D representations of the world with 2D images stitched together with the parallax neural nets in our brain. This blogpost briefly mentions it in one line as a throwaway and says you'd need extremely high resolution cameras?? Doesn't make sense at all. Two cameras of any resolution spaced a regular distance apart should be able to build a better par…

The first thing we need to remember is the self driving doesn't work like our brain. If they do then we don't need to train them with billions of images. So the main problem is not just building the 3d models. For example we don't crash into the car because we never seen that car model or that kind of vehicle before. Check https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/bikeedgecasepredic... we never think that there is a bike infront of us.

Humans do lot more than just identifying an image or doing 3d reconstruction. We have context about the roads, we constantly predict the movement of other cars, we do know how to react based on the situation and most importantly we are not fooled by simple image occlusions. Essentially we have a gigantic correlation engine that takes decision based on comprehending different things happening on the road.

The AI algorithms we teach does not work in the same way as we do. They overly depend on the identifying the image. Lidar provides another signal to the system. It provides redundancy and allows the system to take the right decision. Take the above linked image for an example.

We may not need a lidar once the technology matures but at this stage it is a pretty important redundant system.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#18

Post by Complexicate »

tgog wrote: post #3

This completely neglects the fact that humans can build near perfect 3D representations of the world with 2D images stitched together with the parallax neural nets in our brain. This blogpost briefly mentions it in one line as a throwaway and says you'd need extremely high resolution cameras?? Doesn't make sense at all. Two cameras of any resolution spaced a regular distance apart should be able to build a better par…

The human brain is horrible at building truly accurate 3D representations of the world. Our mental maps are constantly missing a magnitude of details while tricking us and creating approximations to fill in the blanks.

Easy examples of this are optical illusions, ghosts, and ufos. There is also "selective attention tests" where a majority of people miss glaringly obvious events right in front of them, when they're focusing on something else. Regular people also tend to bump into things, spill things, and trip, even when going 3 miles an hour (walking speed).

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#19

Post by threeseed »

mbrumlow wrote: post #7
jsharf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of our ability to judge relative distance is based on our brains judgement of lighting, texture, inference, and sound. While having two eyes helps a lot, you can still navigate a complex office environment with one eye closed. It just takes a bit more care.

When I was younger I remember hearing about how we can do all these things because we have 2 eyes. And that depth perception is what gives us the ability to not walk into walls, and do other things including driving. I have thought about this many times and often wondered why when closing one eye I am still able to function. Sense then I have thought strongly that having depth perception is used for training some oth…

Humans can determine the size of objects because we look for references in the scene and we understand the context.

If a person is standing next to a bush then we roughly know their height since we know the range of sizes that a bush could grow to. Likewise the size of someone like Thanos from Avengers would look odd in a documentary but because its a superhero movie we assume that's normal.

Self driving cars to my knowledge do none of this.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#20

Post by markbnj »

nemothekid wrote: post #16
rmason wrote: post #10

I suspect this is yet another story sponsored by the Tesla shorts. Just saw an excellent two hour interview by Lex Fridman of George Hotz and he goes into details why he thinks camera will win over lidar. But he also admits that presently Google is ahead of everyone in the race for level 5, but raises the question of whether they can ever do it economically enough to make money on it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…

For anyone else who skipped the article - this story likely isn't sponsored by Tesla as it takes a very critical view of Camera-only self driving sensors. Edit: misread the parent comment

The author said "tesla shorts"

> sponsored by the Tesla shorts

i.e. people who are betting against Tesla.

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