Stories

Comment by ThatGeoGuy

Comment

Comment by ThatGeoGuy

It would perhaps be more accurate to say that this is a big leap forward compared to most existing off-the-shelf depth cameras for robotics. To address the iPhone specifically: you probably aren't going to mount iPhones on a bunch of production robots in the field.

Comparing to other alternatives in the robotics space (I've listed RealSense and Structure above, but there are others), there is somewhat of a laundry list of potential pitfalls and issues that we've seen folks trip over again and again.

Calibration is a big one, and a large part of what we're doing with HiFi is launching it with it's own automatic, self-calibration process (no fiducials). There are some device failures that a process like this wouldn't be able to handle, but the vast majority of calibration problems in the field result from difficult tooling or requirements, a need to supply one's own calibration software, or a combination of hardware and software that make the process difficult. A nickel for every time someone has to train a part-time operator to fix calibration in the field, and I'd own Amazon.

Depth quality and precision is another big pitfall — there are folks out there today using RealSense for their robot, but we've talked to a number of folks who just don't rely on the on-board depth. It's too noisy, it warps flat surfaces, etc. Lots of little details that on the surface you might not think about when just looking at a list of cameras! Putting our edge AI capabilities aside, the improved optics and compute available on the HiFi allow us to build a sensor that always provides good depth. That sounds like a baseline for this kind of tech, but there's plenty of examples otherwise on the market today!

Software is probably the other last big thing that we really want to leap forward on. We don't have too much to say about our SDK today, but when we launch it we hope to make working with these sensors a lot easier. I work with RealSense quite a bit (I am the maintainer of realsense-rust), and quite honestly what has been a solid overall hardware package for many years (until HiFi, I hope) is let down by how confusing it is to use librealsense2 in any meaningful project.

Needless to say, I think HiFi stands on some solid merits and I'm not sure it can be directly compared to other 3D sensors in e.g. iPhones, mostly because the expected use-case is so utterly different.

Replies ThatGeoGuy · 2023-11-14
Open on HN
Loading the discussion…

Domain filters

Stories from these domains are hidden from every list. Subdomains match too: blocking substack.com also hides danluu.substack.com.

    About YAVCHN

    YAVCHN is a reader for Hacker News and Lobsters, with articles and discussions in separate windows or Classic pages.

    Created by Paul Parks and built with PUDL.

    YAVCHN source code on GitHub

    Help

    Keyboard

    j / k
    Move down and up the story list. The arrow keys scroll whatever has focus.
    Enter
    Read the marked story in the article reader.
    ]
    Read the next story in the same article-reader applet. Back returns to the previous story.
    p
    Pin or unpin the marked story, which keeps it in Pinned.
    n / N
    Move to the next or previous top-level comment in the window in front.
    c
    Collapse or expand that comment.
    f
    Hide or show the story list.
    Esc
    Close a menu or this help.
    Access key m
    Go to the menu bar. Most browsers take it with Alt on Windows and Linux, and Safari with Control and Option.
    ?
    Show this help.

    Windows

    Each story opens in a window holding its article above its discussion; drag the bar between them to share the room differently. A window can be moved by its title bar, resized from any edge, snapped to a half or a corner by dragging it there, maximised, or minimised to the bar at the foot of the page. Use Window > New reader window to open an empty reader, or Story > Open in new reader window to open another reader for the current article. Docked readers keep their articles when you select another story from the sidebar. Minimized readers can be restored and reused for their site. A window's Next story link reads on down the list in the same window.

    A link in a comment or an article to another Hacker News or Lobsters thread opens that thread in a window too. A link to a single HN comment opens the comment above its replies.

    While a story's window is in front, the Story and Discussion menus in the menu bar hold its commands: pinning, Next story, sorting, collapsing every thread, jumping to the first new comment. Each window also remembers where you were in its article and discussion, so a reload, or Back to a story that Next took you past, finds your place again. Closing a window forgets it.

    The whole arrangement lives in the address, so a bookmark or a shared link brings it back, and Back undoes the last change. Moving between Hacker News, Lobsters, their lists, Pinned and Find changes only the list, and leaves the windows open.

    The list

    The pin at the start of a row keeps the story in Pinned, and the cross at its end hides it. Pinned can be narrowed by words in the title, site or author, by source, and to the stories you haven't opened yet, and ordered by when you pinned them, by points or by comments; the filters are part of the address, so a filtered view can be bookmarked. Scroll past the end of the list to load more. Domain filters, in the View menu, hide every story from a site.

    Browsing view

    View > Windowed and View > Classic select the browsing view and save your default in this browser. Window view reuses a reader for each feed. Classic view opens stories and applets as pages. Open as a page is a one-off action that does not change your saved default. Use the Windowed selector to return an article to a window. Direct page links always open as pages.

    Applets

    The Applets menu in the menu bar holds three tools, each a window of its own. Replies to me takes your Hacker News user name and lists the replies to your last thirty comments and stories, checking again every three minutes while it is open, and marking what is new since you last marked them read. Look up a user opens a profile on Hacker News or Lobsters, with their submissions and recent comments, as a commenter's name in any discussion does; the bar at the top of a profile looks up someone else in the same window, and Back returns to the one before. Who is hiring? filters the posts of HN's monthly hiring threads by the words you type.

    They read only what the sites publish to everyone, so none of them asks for a login, and your user name stays in this browser.

    Find

    Find takes any link and lists every time it was submitted to Hacker News and Lobsters, so you can read each discussion of it.

    About

    YAVCHN never sees your Hacker News or Lobsters login. The discussion is fetched from each site's public API; to vote or reply, follow the link above the discussion, or the arrow beside a comment, to the source's own site. Pins, hidden stories, filters and layout are kept in this browser only.

    Open source: github.com/paulmooreparks/yavchn. Built with PUDL.