Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just spit-balling, but could it be used for cheap depth perception, like a LIDAR alternative?
Do you really want “cheap” depth perception for a self driving car?
Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
91–100 of 111 posts
Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
A stereo camera array can see past occlusions in the sense that some things are occluded to one camera but not to another. With a larger and more distributed camera array, cameras could be pointed everywhere so that every point in the field has a certain level of coverage.
The GP said you can see past occlusions with a Lytro and not with stereo, and that sounds exactly the other way around to me (as to you).
Using stereoscopic as an example, you can synthesize a 2d image with the center being between the two sensors. The further apart you place the sensors, up to some limit, the more you can "rotate" the scene. But you lose a lot of data when the viewing angles become too extreme. A light field image can be used for the same effect, but because it's one sensor your ability to rotate the scene will be constrained (as if you had two sensors very close together).
Apparently the examples I saw years ago on Lytro's site aren't available anymore. It was a neat effect with their initial camera, I imagine higher quality cameras could do much more.
A neat thing with light field sensors versus stereoscopic is that you have far more freedom in how you move around the scene. With two sensors you can only move "left and right" or "up and down". With light field data and one sensor you can move in any direction.
Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are buying them to make dash cams for self driving cars is my guess... That tech in dash-cam video is priceless
Why would it be priceless? With dash-cam video you can just chose a fixed hyperfocal distance and have everything in good focus. You certainly don't need creative DoP and bokeh...
Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
The GP said you can see past occlusions with a Lytro and not with stereo, and that sounds exactly the other way around to me (as to you).
You can do it with both, actually. Light field data allows you to simulate different viewing angles of the same scene. Depending on the sensor quality you can use this to "see around" objects which occlude the scene from a specific angle (like if you view the image from the center of the field of view). Some limitations, of course, similar to stereoscopic imagery. Using stereoscopic as an example, you can synthesize…
Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just spit-balling, but could it be used for cheap depth perception, like a LIDAR alternative?
Do you really want “cheap” depth perception for a self driving car?
Light field sensors could greatly aid self-driving vehicles as a significant improvement over standard cameras and stereoscopic configurations for object detection. It's not as good as Lidar in some ways, but it's much less expensive and offers some of the same kinds of data (which means greater portability of algorithms or techniques between the two sensor types). And since cars need to see the same visual cues humans do, we need cameras anyways (for reading signs and road directions, lane detection, etc.) so using a light field sensor could offer a twofer. Improved object detection plus the ability to do visual detection we already need.
Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can do it with both, actually. Light field data allows you to simulate different viewing angles of the same scene. Depending on the sensor quality you can use this to "see around" objects which occlude the scene from a specific angle (like if you view the image from the center of the field of view). Some limitations, of course, similar to stereoscopic imagery. Using stereoscopic as an example, you can synthesize…
Ah, I see what you mean. You're constrained to viewpoints on the sensor, though, no? So usually a small square.
(I spent a lot of time reading about light field stuffs back when Lytro was first announced, I was also tangentially connected to a synthetic aperture radar project so it piqued a lot of my curiosity at the time. I haven't kept up with the state-of-the-art since then, though.)
Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#97Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#98Hasn't Photoshop had this tech for a couple years now? I remember seeing on HN a video of Adobe demonstrating it at a conference.
Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#99Lytro has really cool technology but never really found a good use case for consumers. I owned both the 1st generation and 2nd generation camera, as much as I hated the UI of the software and usability of the hardware, I can clearly see the team has tried really hard to make it usable. They tried building an editing app, a community, a community 2.0, multiple hardware batch revisions. I wonder why they didn’t stop so…
1st gen owner here. They absolutely tried hard, but I feel like they missed out on doing the one thing that might have really let the product take off: Releasing APIs (or at least protocol specs) for interacting with the camera over USB and wifi, and releasing a spec for their file format. That might have given them a chance to really take off in the DIY and hobbyist market. After unboxing mine, I pretty much immedia…
That's where I find myself always hating autofocus (even on a fancy camera with focus tracking and motion detection and such).
Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
1st gen owner here. They absolutely tried hard, but I feel like they missed out on doing the one thing that might have really let the product take off: Releasing APIs (or at least protocol specs) for interacting with the camera over USB and wifi, and releasing a spec for their file format. That might have given them a chance to really take off in the DIY and hobbyist market. After unboxing mine, I pretty much immedia…
How well did it work for action? That's where I find myself always hating autofocus (even on a fancy camera with focus tracking and motion detection and such).
I'd assume the Illum (which I've never had a chance to play with) would be way better on that front.