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Posted by John Nagle on May 2, 2008, 3:09 am
A. Caspis wrote:
> John Nagle wrote:
>> Very nice. It's a gated imager, rather than a per-pixel time of
>> flight counter, so you don't get full Z data in a single frame.
>
> My understanding is that they *do* get a full Z-map per frame:
> the gating is designed so that each sensor pixel accumulates
> light for a duration that is proportional to depth. Presumably
> they use another imager, or a second non-gated pulse, to account
> for differences in scene reflectivity between pixels.
>
> Any clarification about this product is welcome. If they can
> market it for ~ 100 USD, it is going to have a huge impact on
> mass-market and homebrew robotics.
There's plenty of hype on the web, but even though the company's
site says the product is for sale, they don't even offer anything
you can actually buy, not even a developer kit. No data sheets
or manuals, either.
The thing should work, but they may not have the manufacturing yet
to hit their claimed price point.
If they have a gated imager that good, I'm surprised they don't
make a set of binoculars with it. There's an expensive system
"http://www.laseroptronix.se/gated/gatsys.html" used for seeing
through fog.
John Nagle
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> uses time-of-flight from a set of LED's that emit a pulse. The
> special imaging chip that has a fast gate so that each pixel can have
> a depth value.
>
> I imagine that this technology is going to revolutionize navigation
> for robots. The best part is that they want to market it to gamers,
> and price it under $100.
>
> For computer vision, it can provide a method for creating a 3-d map
> of the environment. For your specific application, it provides a way
> to filter out objects in the background. I believe this "depth
> cropping" is onboard the camera, so it doesn't need computer
> processing to do it.
>
> It is supposed to be out this year, but doesn't seem to be for sale
> yet to the public. They do have a SDK for sale (and I imagine the
> camera is available to developers as well).
>
> Joe Dunfee