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Camera vs. Lidar

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Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#131

Post by kajecounterhack »

ebg13 wrote: post #77
kajecounterhack wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lidar provide the same information (line of sight depth) as stereo cameras, just in a different way. This is incorrect, the amount of parallax you need to get the same kind of accurate depth using camera is infeasible. Velodynes other common lidar now gets you points accurate at 150m+. Cameras can't do that, and if you use nets to guess you'll still make mistakes. > The person you're responding to is talking about…

> the amount of parallax you need to get the same kind of accurate depth using camera is infeasible. Velodynes other common lidar now gets you points accurate at 150m+ I meant they both just provide line of sight depth. The point being made by the first comment is that human eyeballs placed one inch apart are currently the gold standard for the actual looking part. So the right set of cameras is by definition suffici…

From the OP:

> humans can build near perfect 3D representations of the world with 2D images stitched together with the parallax neural nets in our brain

This is a statement about cognition. And the response addresses this.

Your response:

> The person you're responding to is talking about depth from stereo, not cognition.

I think this is the disconnect. The person _is_ talking about cognition. OP makes a claim about how humans see, connected to how the human brain works. Response explains why camera-based image recognition right now is a lot worse than your eyes (a big piece of the answer is your brain).

> The cameras just have to replace eye well enough

So yes this is nice in theory. But I also get the sense most people don't realize just how large the chasm is today between cameras and human eyes. They don't "just provide line of sight depth." Dynamic range, field of view, reliability even under conditions like high heat -- there are many other dimensions where they just aren't analogous yet.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#132

Post by Latteland »

jgalt212 wrote: post #96
heyflyguy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is an eternal optimist that truly believes that the tech will catch up with his goals.

That's a truly optimistic view of Elon, the pessimistic view is that's he's PT Barnum.

But that's a clearly inaccurate view. The cars work, very well. They have sold mass numbers, in opposition to car dealers, conservative oil and gas industry opposition, the automotive industry. They have little maintenance (far less than regular cars). They seem pretty safe overall. I've owned a number of high quality cars, such as an audi s4, and my tesla since 2012 (7 years ago they had all this stuff!) has worked well. These cars are made and driven by humans, so there will be some mechanical problems, people with crash them occasionally, they are filled with energy and can catch on fire occasionally.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#133

Post by jgalt212 »

Latteland wrote: post #132
jgalt212 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a truly optimistic view of Elon, the pessimistic view is that's he's PT Barnum.

But that's a clearly inaccurate view. The cars work, very well. They have sold mass numbers, in opposition to car dealers, conservative oil and gas industry opposition, the automotive industry. They have little maintenance (far less than regular cars). They seem pretty safe overall. I've owned a number of high quality cars, such as an audi s4, and my tesla since 2012 (7 years ago they had all this stuff!) has worked…

It's easy to sell a product, when you charge less than it costs to produce. That's the silicon valley way.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#134

Post by sdenton4 »

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…

Cameras do not perform saccades, for starters... The hardware isn't as analogous as it might seem.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#135

Post by gambiting »

Faark wrote: post #126
michaelt wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that situation, what do you think would happen to customers who've paid $6000 for the 'Full Self-Driving Capability' ?

They get the upgrade for free, I'd hope? Kind of like they seem to feel the need to do regarding their new chip [0]. Less optimistic, people will probably be less eager to upgrade once those cars are several generations old by the point FSD will actually be available. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/8/20685873/tesla-fsd-chip-up...

Well the problem is that as I understand it you need to get the FSD package right now to get the current advanced cruise control, which is kind of the party trick of a Tesla and a reason why I'd want one(that and the whole electric drive thing I guess).

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#136

Post by Animats »

MrOwen wrote: post #124
asdkhadsj wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does make me sad that Tesla didn't just throw all the (affordable?) tech they could into their cars, and then figure it out later. Eg, it seems like they are taking the "figure it out later" approach, but they limited what they can work with to just camera information. Which to me is a shame. I'd like to see Tesla's model with lots of inputs. Then again, I don't ship these cars, so I'm probably being ignorant :)

To be fair, it seems like there's been a lot of innovation and miniaturization in the LIDAR space in the past year or two. Even if Tesla wanted to preemptively install LIDAR for future proofing, I'm guessing that addition to the car would be an eye sore.

There are lots of LIDAR startups. And there's Continental, the big European auto parts maker. They bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, which has a good but expensive flash LIDAR. (I saw the prototype on an optical bench 15 years ago.) They showed a prototype on a car in 2017.[1]

There are about 100 companies involved with automotive LIDAR.[2] Making LIDAR units cheaper looks within reach. Arguments are over which technology of several that work will be cheapest. Not whether it can be done. There are the rotating machinery guys. The flash LIDAR guys, divided into the "we can make CMOS do it" and "we can get InGaAs fabbed at reasonable cost" camps. There are the MEMS mirror people. All have working demo units.

But no car maker is prepared to order in quantity. Continental is an auto parts maker - when some auto manufacturer wants to order a few hundred thousand units, they'll crank up a production line and get the price down. There's no demand yet beyond the prototype level. The startups mostly want to get bought out by someone who can manufacture in volume. In the end, it's an auto part.

Once the units get cheaper, they can be better integrated into cars. The top 2cm or so of the windshield can be dedicated to sensors. Additional sensors near the headlights, looking sideways from the fenders, and backwards will complete the circle. The top-mounted rotating thing is a temporary measure until the price comes down.

[1] https://www.continental-automotive.com/en-gl/Landing-Pages/C...

[2] http://www.automotivelidar.com/

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#137

Post by alkonaut »

microtherion wrote: post #127
alkonaut wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully no one bought a car hoping it will magically be “fully autonomous” in the future, given that no one knows whether it will even be possible with a research vehicle in 10 years

If they weren't hoping that, it would seem odd for them to pay several thousand dollars for a "Full Self Driving" option.

Yeah, I mean I hope people realize that just a few thousand and ”Full self driving” doesn’t imply ”Fully autonomous” in the sense that people can use their Tesla as an Uber and be drunk in the back seat! It just means that they’ll have the best autonomy that Tesla can provide which still means they have to pay attention. “Fully autonomous” to me is the point where my kid who can’t drive can use it as a taxi to school with no other driver etc. Musk doesn’t imagine that yet I hope.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#138

Post by microtherion »

alkonaut wrote: post #137
microtherion wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they weren't hoping that, it would seem odd for them to pay several thousand dollars for a "Full Self Driving" option.

Yeah, I mean I hope people realize that just a few thousand and ”Full self driving” doesn’t imply ”Fully autonomous” in the sense that people can use their Tesla as an Uber and be drunk in the back seat! It just means that they’ll have the best autonomy that Tesla can provide which still means they have to pay attention. “Fully autonomous” to me is the point where my kid who can’t drive can use it as a taxi to school…

Now I'm confused. At one point, Tesla literally had the following description for "Full self driving": "in the future, Model 3 will be capable of conducting trips with no action required by the person in the driver's seat".

Isn't that pretty much what you said "Full self driving" does NOT imply?

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#139

Post by alkonaut »

microtherion wrote: post #138
alkonaut wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I mean I hope people realize that just a few thousand and ”Full self driving” doesn’t imply ”Fully autonomous” in the sense that people can use their Tesla as an Uber and be drunk in the back seat! It just means that they’ll have the best autonomy that Tesla can provide which still means they have to pay attention. “Fully autonomous” to me is the point where my kid who can’t drive can use it as a taxi to school…

Now I'm confused. At one point, Tesla literally had the following description for "Full self driving": "in the future, Model 3 will be capable of conducting trips with no action required by the person in the driver's seat". Isn't that pretty much what you said "Full self driving" does NOT imply?

Conducting (some, specific/easy) trips with no action is easy. Even conducting most trips is likely doable within the near-ish future.

“Full autonomy” (at least to me) is being able to do any trip. Not just some or most. Because the key benefit is that the car can be empty, or the passenger drunk/blind/...

That’s what I think the crucial difference is between their marketed “full self driving” and true full autonomy.

Re: Camera vs. Lidar

#140

Post by m463 »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #103
ajross wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, though: Elon is shipping actual vehicles. I mean, I think the GM and Waymo offerings look great too, but I can't buy one. Even granting the premise that LiDAR is going to be a firm requirement, it's not clear to me that Tesla is actually behind the curve on real products. Adding a LiDAR system (or buying one from Waymo) to a Tesla seems naively simpler than finishing and shipping a whole new system from s…

It does make me sad that Tesla didn't just throw all the (affordable?) tech they could into their cars, and then figure it out later. Eg, it seems like they are taking the "figure it out later" approach, but they limited what they can work with to just camera information. Which to me is a shame. I'd like to see Tesla's model with lots of inputs. Then again, I don't ship these cars, so I'm probably being ignorant :)

> Tesla didn't just throw all the (affordable?) tech they could into their cars

But they did. Since the late 2016 model S, each tesla comes with 1 radar unit, 8 cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors and a replacable computer system.

At the start, these were not all used, but they have been used for more functions over time.

The model X got the same cameras, and my friend who has one said his car uses the side cameras to prevent the self-opening driver and passenger doors from dinging nearby cars.

They've designed a new faster computer (Hardware 3.0). The folks who paid for full self driving will get one of these swapped in when full self driving features require it.

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