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Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

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Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#271

Post by moffkalast »

captainmuon wrote: post #269
STRML wrote: post #22

There are multiple tells that this move, just like the removal of radar, is supply-chain and cost-driven and not actually driven by engineering. If this were a planned move, the software would already be ready to replace it. It is not. Cars without radar still aren't at parity with the car that have it, although they "fixed" this a few weeks back by simply turning off the radar on the older cars. The parking sensors…

It would be possible to use cameras instead of ultrasound, but that would require mounting a lot more cameras in the dead zones as you said. One of the coolest things I've seen was on a BYD, which has cameras mounted pointing downwards all around. It then creates a fake birdseye view when you are parking, or close to an obstacle. It looked really convincing, as if there was a drone above the car.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BBJr8LkM-4I&feature=share&utm_so...

I mean damn that looks legit. I'd like to see how it performs at night when you're trying to park in some unlit parking lot, but otherwise that's a pretty amazing projection right there. The dream of driving in 3rd person view is finally here.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#272

Post by darkwater »

aeternum wrote: post #42
STRML wrote: post #22

There are multiple tells that this move, just like the removal of radar, is supply-chain and cost-driven and not actually driven by engineering. If this were a planned move, the software would already be ready to replace it. It is not. Cars without radar still aren't at parity with the car that have it, although they "fixed" this a few weeks back by simply turning off the radar on the older cars. The parking sensors…

With the removal of radar, they showed some pretty convincing data that the radar was too noisy to be useful, especially with discriminating things like highway overpasses vs. stopped cars. They showed that vision could already outperform radar. With these parking sensors it's different. They have no current alternative and it will cause a pretty significant loss of functionality. Disappointing move.

> With these parking sensors it's different. They have no current alternative and it will cause a pretty significant loss of functionality. Disappointing move.

I'm especially worried by dark garages / parkings. Tesla cams have already enough problems when outside is too dark.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#273

Post by yonaguska »

cameronh90 wrote: post #260
rob74 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, (un)fortunately compared with cameras, eyes have really high resolution and (most relevant) a truly excellent dynamic range.

Modern sensors combined with computational photography does seem to be changing this though. For example, I now use my phone camera to see where I'm going at night if it's dark, and to read distant text. This is despite my (corrected) eyesight being better than 20/20 and I have better than usual night vision. The eyes are fantastic organs, but the thing that makes them exceptional is the brain. Computers seem to be c…

Flashlight's have come a long way. I much prefer that to using my phone, especially on Android where opening the camera can be finicky and turning on the lamp requires a ridiculous amount of steps compared to the iPhones. Especially handy if out in the cold with gloves. Armytek prime c2 pro is pretty great.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#274

Post by [deleted] »

STRML wrote: post #22

There are multiple tells that this move, just like the removal of radar, is supply-chain and cost-driven and not actually driven by engineering. If this were a planned move, the software would already be ready to replace it. It is not. Cars without radar still aren't at parity with the car that have it, although they "fixed" this a few weeks back by simply turning off the radar on the older cars. The parking sensors…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#275

Post by moffkalast »

rob74 wrote: post #243
rrss wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They showed that vision could already outperform radar. important to note that much like there is a wide range from bad cameras (“filmed with a potato”) to high resolution cameras, there is a wide variety of radars with different capabilities. the radar unit in Teslas was pretty limited (basically designed for adaptive cruise control), and they showed that vision could outperform that radar (and have no interest in…

Yeah, (un)fortunately compared with cameras, eyes have really high resolution and (most relevant) a truly excellent dynamic range.

> eyes have really high resolution

That's not actually the case, from what I heard. Most of our peripheral vision is smudged 720p at best, and we can only see a tiny focused area at slightly beyond 4K density. We also can't look at two things at once.

The dynamic range part is definitely true though.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#276

Post by creshal »

kypro wrote: post #247
vzaliva wrote: post #110

As an engineer, I see little value in removing any sensors. No matter how noisy or limited they are, they bring additional information which, if processed, could improve overall accuracy. This is commonly referred to as "sensor fusion". So this is probably is purely cost-saving move. While I understand how radar could be expensive, I am not sure the saving on much cheaper ultrasound sensors is worth the loss of addit…

I've worked on 3d vision systems before and have experimented using different types of sensors in multi-sensor setups, and I'd argue that overwhelmingly it's a software problem. More sensors help, but passed a point it's extremely marginal, plus you're throwing the majority of the raw data away anyway. I do agree though - assuming processing power isn't a performance bottleneck here, more data is always better. But t…

> More sensors help, but passed a point it's extremely marginal, plus you're throwing the majority of the raw data away anyway.

Unless other sensors break, then they're suddenly useful redundancy. In a safety critical product like this, that alone should preclude the removal of sensors.

> But there's a reason humans only have two eyes and not three or four, for example. Two eyes are really all you need.

You still get two, both for depth sensing and for redundancy; and some animals like spiders have 6-8 eyes.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#277

Post by simondotau »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #267
simondotau wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need to take Tesla’s word for anything. Their latest vision stack is in the hands of ten thousand customers, some of whom regularly post their drives on YouTube.

And that regularly demonstrate catastrophic failures, yes, I know.

What's your definition of catastrophic?

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#278

Post by ryukoposting »

captainmuon wrote: post #269
STRML wrote: post #22

There are multiple tells that this move, just like the removal of radar, is supply-chain and cost-driven and not actually driven by engineering. If this were a planned move, the software would already be ready to replace it. It is not. Cars without radar still aren't at parity with the car that have it, although they "fixed" this a few weeks back by simply turning off the radar on the older cars. The parking sensors…

It would be possible to use cameras instead of ultrasound, but that would require mounting a lot more cameras in the dead zones as you said. One of the coolest things I've seen was on a BYD, which has cameras mounted pointing downwards all around. It then creates a fake birdseye view when you are parking, or close to an obstacle. It looked really convincing, as if there was a drone above the car.

I had a Lexus ES 350 loaner the last time my (22 year old) Lexus was in the shop- it had the same feature you describe in the BYD. There was obviously some stretching/warping trickery being done to create the birds-eye image, but it was really impressive regardless.

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#279

Post by AlexandrB »

simondotau wrote: post #251
salil999 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do though! They can easily disable features like Autopilot, Autopark, Summon, etc fleetwide in a snap if they wanted to.

Legally, I'm pretty sure they couldn't. Technically, this is true for any product which has a pathway for software updates. Arguably this includes nearly all models of car on sale today, which can have their software updated — even if the process is more cumbersome. The key difference is that a Tesla vehicle can conveniently perform comprehensive whole-of-car updates while it's sitting in your garage, whereas many ot…

> Legally, I'm pretty sure they couldn't.

Somewhat related question: do Teslas have a EULA or other agreement on purchase? And if so, does it include an arbitration clause?

Re: Tesla Vision Update: Replacing Ultrasonic Sensors with Tesla Vision

#280

Post by AlexandrB »

015a wrote: post #181
Ninjinka wrote: post #100

Geohot was right. Tweet re: LIDAR, but still: "When this delusion ends and all these companies fold, it won't be LIDAR vs. Or ride sharing vs. None of this matters. All that matters is building an intelligent machine. Self driving is 100% a software problem. Given software written by God, a smartphone can drive a car." https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/1577045884159676416?s=20...

Musk has said similar things in the past; that cars should be able to do everything human drivers can do with only vision, because that's all human drivers have (discounting the far more minor sensory inputs like sound and touch). I find that take fascinating. Its, in effect, saying "well, computer hardware and the human brain are similar enough; the human brain just got an evolutionary headstart on its software, so…

It would be interesting if the thing wrong with the "eyes are just cameras" logic was the subtle differences. Like how retinas are not flat, but concave or the way our eyes continuously reposition to fill in gaps in our vision. Such differences seem incidental or compensatory, but it's not impossible that our brain is able to make better distance/position judgements because of them.

The other missing piece is just how good the brain is at object recognition and persistence. A huge advantage when you have a 2d image and you need to gauge distance (at least partially) by size or when you need to avoid a moving obstacle by predicting its trajectory.

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