Comment by toss1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toss1 | Hacker News Reader

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Yup.

The concept that biological systems have made 3D vision, navigation, and object avoidance work without LIDAR is certainly attractive.

But there is a LOT more to it than just a photosensor and a bunch of calculations. The sensors themselves have many properties unmatched by cameras, including wider dynamic range, processing in the retina and optic nerve itself, and more, and the intelligence attached to every biological eye also is built upon a body that moves in 3D space, so has a LOT of alternate sensory input to fuse into an internal 3D model and processing space. We are nowhere near being able to replicate that.

The more appropriate analogy would be the wheel or powered fixed wing aircraft. Yes, we're finally starting to be able to build walking robots and wing-flapping aircraft, and those may ultimately be the best solution for many things. But, in the meantime, the 'artificial' solution of wheels and fixed airfoils gets us much further.

Ultimately, camera-only vision systems will likely be the best solution, but until then, integrating LIDAR will get us much further.

> Ultimately, camera-only vision systems will likely be the best solution, but until then, integrating LIDAR will get us much further.

Why though? How could it possibly be better than camera plus other sensors?

Because LIDAR specifically gives you the range or distance to each object. While in theory this should be possible with multiple cameras and stereoscopic vision/analysis, it obviously is not as simple in practice as it seems in theory. The additional depth info is also critical in identifying objects.

For example, several drivers of Tesla vehicles have been beheaded when a semi-truck turned/crossed in front of them and the car on autopilot evidently identified the white side of the trailer as sky and drove right under it, removing the roof and the occupant's heads. LIDAR would have identified a large flat object at range decreasing at the approximate speed of the vehicle, and presumably the self-driving system would have taken different action.

I think you misunderstood the question you responded to. The question was in response to (edit: your own conclusion) "ultimately, camera-only will be the best system" - and was wondering why the same camera system PLUS more sensors wouldn't be better?

edit: I think perhaps you didn't quite mean it that way, but it sounded like you were saying "eventually, camera-only will be superior to any other possible system, including camera + other sensors", which just seems nonsensical.

Ah, got it now, and it's an excellent point. Mostly thinking the idea of cameras(+intelligence)-only may be best in the end just from perspective of smallest effective resources and assuming biomimicry is best.

To your point, there are MANY situations where that will never be true, where the extra 3D info will absolutely make a difference.

Going back to the wheel/leg and fixed/flapping wing analogues; legs and flapping wings will likely always be superior for rough terrain and tight spaces. However, legged vehicles will never be as fast as wheels can go on smoother roads, and similarly, flapping wings will never be superior to fixed-wings+power for long haul or heavy air transport.

So, you're right — it's Horses For Courses — different solutions will work best in different situations.

Whenever I walk up to a chainlink fence, and my vision places it at the wrong z distance, I'm reminded that 3d from vision is a consequence of our biological limitation of not having evolved emitters.

>>not having evolved emitters.

Like echolocation in bats and dolphins... Excellent point!

In fact, humans do have some echolocation capability [0,1]. That should tell us that LIDAR (or emitter-receiver-range-finder capability) may ultimately always be a core piece of the solution.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-does-human-ech...

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